Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan
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Title: Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan
Author: Bennet Burleigh
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Language: English
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KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN
1898
OR THE
RE-CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN
BY
BENNET BURLEIGH.
AUTHOR OF "SIRDAR AND KHALIFA."
WITH MAPS, PLANS OF BATTLE, AND NUMEROUS
ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND IMPRESSION.
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED
1899
PREFACE.
By the overthrow of Mahdism, the great region of Central Africa has
been opened to civilisation. From the date of the splendid victory of
Omdurman, 2nd September 1898, may be reckoned the creation of a vast
Soudan empire. At so early a stage, it is idle to speculate whether
the country will be held as a British possession, or as a province of
Egypt. "The land of the blacks," and their truculent Arab despoilers,
has the intrinsic qualities that secure distinction. Given peace, it
may be expected that the mixed negroid races of the Upper Nile will
prove themselves as orderly and industrious as they are conspicuously
brave. Whoever rules them wisely, will have the control of the best
native tribes of the Dark Continent, the raw material of a mighty
state. This, too, is foreshadowed; the dominant power in Central
Northern Africa, if no farther afield, will have its capital in
Khartoum, "Ethiopia will soon stretch out her hands unto God."
The recent events which have so altered the condition of affairs upon
the Upper Nile, deserve more than ephemeral record. A campaign so full
of inspiriting incident, a victory which has brought presage of a
great and prosperous Soudan, merits re-telling. Through half a score
of battles or more, from the beginning to the death of Mahdism, I have
followed British and Egyptian troops into action against the
dervishes. I knew General Hicks, and had the luck to miss accompanying
his ill-fated expedition. In the present volume, "Khartoum Campaign,"
the narrative of the reconquest is completed, the history being
carried to the occupation of Fashoda and Sobat, including the
withdrawal of Major Marchand's French mission. I have made use of my
telegrams and letters to the _Daily Telegraph_, London, and the full
notes I made from day to day during the campaign. Besides, I have
quoted in certain cases from official sources, and given extracts from
verbal and written communications made to me by distinguished officers
engaged in the operations.
For use of maps, sketches, and photographs, I am indebted to the
proprietors of the _Daily Telegraph_, to Mr Ross of _Black and White_,
Surgeon-General William Taylor, Colonel Frank Rhodes, Lieutenant E. D.
Loch, Grenadier Guards, Mr Francis Gregson, Mr Munro of Dingwall,
N.B., and others.
BENNET BURLEIGH.
LONDON, _December 1898_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY--REVIEW OF THE FIELD, 1
CHAPTER II.
DAYS OF WAITING AND PREPARATION, 14
CHAPTER III.
MUSTERING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF MAHDISM, 35
CHAPTER IV.
BY THE WAY--FROM CAIRO TO DAKHALA, 45
CHAPTER V.
DAKHALA CAMP: GOSSIP AND DUTY, 63
CHAPTER VI.
MARCHING IN THE SOUDAN--FROM DAKHALA TO WAD HABESHI, 75
CHAPTER VII.
WITH THE ARMY IN THE FIELD--WAD HAMID TO EL HEJIR, 92
CHAPTER VIII.
EL HEJIR TO UM TERIF--INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS, 105
CHAPTER IX.
ADVANCE TO KERRERI--SKIRMISHING WITH THE ENEMY, 119
CHAPTER X.
THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN--FIRST PHASE OF THE FIGHT, 135
CHAPTER XI.
BATTLE OF OMDURMAN--_continued._--THE CAVALRY
FIGHTS--MACDONALD'S SAVING ACTION, 167
CHAPTER XII.
STORIES OF THE BATTLE--OMDURMAN, 199
CHAPTER XIII.
CLOSE OF CAMPAIGN--GORDON MEMORIAL SERVICE, KHARTOUM, 228
CHAPTER XIV.
KHARTOUM MEMORIAL COLLEGE--THE OFFICIAL DESPATCHES, 263
CHAPTER XV.
THE FASHODA AFFAIR--A RED BRITISH LINE THROUGH AFRICA, 295
POSTSCRIPT, 334
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Brigadier-General H. A. Macdonald, C.B., D.S.O., _Frontispiece_
Bennet Burleigh, _To face page_ 1
Headquarters, Wady Halfa, 9
Darmali (British Brigade Summer Quarters), 23
Group of Staff Officers--Colonel Wingate in Centre, 34
Street in Dakhala, 53
Troops going to Wad Habeshi, 58
Wood Station (_en route_ to Omdurman), 69
Loading Up--Breaking Camp, 77
21st Lancers--Advance Guard, 81
Halt by the Way, 87
Slatin Pasha (on Foot), 89
Artillery going towards Omdurman, 125
Battle of Omdurman--Zereba Action, 151
Macdonald's Brigade advancing, 182
Sirdar directing Advance on Omdurman, 183
Khalifa's Captured Standard (Sirdar extreme left), 195
Chief Thoroughfare, Omdurman (Mulazim Wall, left; Osman
Digna's House, right), 196
Effect of Shell Fire upon Wall (Mulazim Enclosure), 197
Khalifa's House, 217
Mahdi's Tomb--Effect of Lyddite Shells, 219
Interior Mahdi's Tomb (Grille around Sarcophagus), 221
Khalifa's Gallows (cutting down his Last Victim), 223
Neufeld on Gunboat "Sheik"--Cutting off his Ankle-Irons, 225
Khalifa's Chief Eunuch (surrenders in British Camp), 229
Fresh Batch Wounded and Unwounded Dervish Prisoners,
Omdurman, 4th September 1898, 231
Neufeld, with Abyssinian Wife and Children; also Fellow
Prisoner, 241
Distant View, Khartoum (from Blue Nile), 255
Hoisting Flags, Khartoum, 259
Col. H. Macdonald at Omdurman, with Officer and
Non-Commissioned Officer of 1st Brigade, 291
MAPS AND PLANS.
General View Plan, "A," _page_ 173
Zereba Plan, "B," " 179
First Attack on Macdonald's Brigade, "C," Plate 1, " 187
Second Attack on Macdonald's Brigade, "D," Plate 2, " 191
KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.--REVIEW OF FIELD.
It is an easier and kindlier duty to set forth facts than to proclaim
opinions and pronounce judgments. Before Tel-el-Kebir was fought in
September 1882 and the Egyptian army beaten and disbanded, the
insurrection headed by the Mahdi or False Prophet had begun. In the
disrupted condition of affairs which succeeded Arabi Pasha's defeat by
British arms the dervish movement made further rapid progress. To Sir
Evelyn Wood, V.C., at the close of 1882, was assigned the task, as
Sirdar or Commander-in-Chief of the Khedivial troops, of forming a
real native army. It was that distinguished soldier, aided by an
exceptionally able staff, who first took in hand the re-organisation
and proper training of the fellaheen recruits. By dint of drill,
discipline and stiffening with British commissioned and
non-commissioned officers he soon made passable soldiers of the
"Gippies." The new army was at first restricted to eight battalions
of Egyptian infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and four batteries of
artillery. Although there were Soudanese amongst Arabi's troops, they
were mostly gunners. It was not until May 1884 that the first "black"
regiment was raised. Yet it had been notorious that the Soudanese were
the only Khedivial soldiers who made anything of a stubborn stand
against us in the 1882 campaign. The blacks who came down with the
Salahieh garrison on the 9th of August 1882, and joined in the
surprise attack upon General Graham's brigade then in camp at
Kassassin, were not easily driven off. The large body of Egyptian
infantry and cavalry, although supported by several Krupp batteries
which, issuing from the Tel-el-Kebir lines, assailed us in front, were
readily checked and pushed back. It was our right rear that the
"blacks" and others forming the Salahieh column menaced, and it
required some tough fighting before Sir Baker-Russell with his cavalry
and horse artillery was able to drive them off. In truth, the "blacks"
held on long after the main body of Arabi's force had abandoned their
intention of driving the British into the Suez Canal or the sea.
The first Soudanese battalion was recruited and mustered-in at Suakim.
It got the next numeral in regimental order, and so became known as
the "Ninth." Many of the blacks who enlisted in the Ninth--Dinkas,
Shilluks, Gallas, and what not--were deserters from the Mahdi's
banner, or dervishes who had been taken prisoners at El Teb and Tamai.
It has never yet been deemed advisable to enrol any of the Arab
tribesmen in the Khedivial regular army. Hadendowa, Kababish, Jaalin,
Baggara, and many other clans, lack no physical qualifications for a
military career. Their desperate courage in support of a cause they
have at heart is an inspiration of self-immolation. But they are as
uncertain and difficult to regulate by ordinary methods of discipline
as the American Red Indian, and so are only fitted for irregular
service. In March 1885 General Sir Francis Grenfell succeeded to the
Sirdarship. With tact and energy he carried still further forward the
excellent work of his predecessor. Four additional Soudanese
battalions were created during his term, and the army was strengthened
and better equipped for its duties in many other respects. Sir Francis
had the satisfaction of leading his untried soldiers against the
dervishes, and winning brilliant victories and, in at least one
instance, over superior numbers. He it was, who, at Toski in August
1889, routed an invading army of dervishes, whereat was killed their
famous leader Wad en Nejumi. That battle put an end to the dream of
the Mahdists to overrun and conquer Egypt and the world. The Khalifa
thereafter found his safest policy, unless attacked, was to let the
regular Egyptian forces severely alone.
It was shown that, when well handled, the fellaheen and the blacks
could defeat the dervishes. Lord Kitchener of Khartoum became Sirdar
in the spring of 1892. His career in the land of the Nile may be
briefly summarised: first as a Lieutenant, then successively as
Captain, Major, Colonel and General, that Royal Engineer Officer from
1882 has been actively employed either in Egypt proper or the Soudan.
He has, during that interval, been entrusted with many perilous and
delicate missions and independent commands. Whatever was given him to
do was carried through with zeal and resolution. In his time also
little by little the Khedivial forces have been increased. A sixth
Soudanese battalion was raised in 1896, and in that and the following
year four additional fellaheen battalions were added to the army. When
the Khartoum campaign began, the total muster-roll of the regular
troops was eighteen battalions of infantry, ten squadrons of cavalry,
a camel corps of eight companies, five batteries of artillery,
together with the customary quota of engineers, medical staff,
transport, and other departmental troops. There was a railway
construction battalion numbering at least 2000 men, but they were
non-combatants. As the whole armed strength of Egypt was, for the
occasion, practically called into the field, the peace of the Delta
had to be secured by other means. A small armed body called the Coast
Guard and the ordinary police, apart from the meagre British garrison,
were responsible for public tranquillity. The re-organisation and
increase of the Coast Guard, which was decided on, into an army of
8000 men, was a brilliant idea, and one of the recent master-strokes
of Lord Cromer and the Sirdar. It is ostensibly a quasi-civil force,
and it was formed and equipped without the worry of international
queries and interference. The Coast Guard is mainly composed of picked
men, including old soldiers and reservists. Their duties carry them
into the interior as well as along the sea-coast, for, partly on
account of the salt tax, there are revenue defaulters along the
borders of the Nile as well as by the Mediterranean and Red Sea. They
are dressed like soldiers and are armed with Remingtons.
Mohammed Achmed, who called himself the Mahdi, or the last of the
prophets, whose mission was to convert the world to Islamism, was a
native of Dongola. He was born near El Ordeh, or New Dongola, in 1848,
and was the son of a carpenter. In person, he was above the medium
height, robust, and with a rather handsome Arab cast of features.
During 1884 I saw his brother and two of his nephews in a village
south of El Ordeh. All of them were tall stalwart men, light of
complexion for Dongolese, courteous and hospitable to strangers.
Mohammed Achmed, from his youth, evinced a taste for religious studies
coupled with the ascetic extravagances of a too emotional nature. From
Khartoum to Fashoda he acquired a great reputation for sanctity.
Religious devotees gathered around him and followed him to his retreat
upon the island of Abba. There he, in May 1881, first announced his
claims as the true Mahdi. His barefaced assertions of special divine
command and guidance found credulous believers. With the wisdom of the
serpent he had added to his influence and security as a prophet by
marrying daughters of Baggara sheiks, _i.e._ chiefs. Mohammed Achmed
was a vigorous and captivating preacher, learned in all the literature
of the Koran, ever ready with apt and telling quotations. His early
teaching was decidedly socialistic, including a command for the
overthrow of the then existing civil state. His principles have been
summed up officially as "an insistence upon universal law and
religion--his own--with community of goods, and death to all who
refused adherence to his tenets." Unfortunately, "opportunity" played
into his hands. The misrule of the Pashas, the burden of over-taxation
coupled with the legal suppression of the slave trade, and the
demoralisation of the Egyptian forces enabled Mohammed Achmed to rebel
successfully. Troops sent against him were defeated and annihilated.
Towns capitulated to his arms and within a period of two years the
inhabitants of the Soudan were hailing him as the true Mahdi, their
invincible deliverer. With the capture of Khartoum, on the morning of
the 26th of January 1885, and the abandonment of the Soudan and its
population--the Egyptian frontier being fixed by British Government
order at Wady Halfa--the over-lordship of that immense region from the
Second Cataract to the Equatorial Lakes was yielded to the so-called
Mahdi Mohammed Achmed did not long enjoy his conquests. Success killed
him as it has done many a lesser man. For a season he gave himself up
to a life of indolence and the grossest lust. On the 22nd of June
1885, less than six months after Gordon's head had been struck off and
brought to him, the Mahdi suddenly died. It is said by some that his
death was due to smallpox, by others that one of his women captives
poisoned him in revenge for the murder of her relatives. His demise
was kept secret for a time by his successor Abdullah, the chief
Khalifa, and the other dervish leaders. It was given out that the
Mahdi's spirit had been called to Heaven for a space but would soon
return to lead his hosts to fresh triumphs and further fat spoils. A
tomb was erected over the place where his body lay, and the legend of
his mission was taken over by Abdullah, who also in due season had
visions and communicated reputed divine ordinances to the dervishes.
Abdullah, who was ignorant, illiterate and cruel, far beyond his dead
master--"the cruellest man on earth," Slatin Pasha dubbed him,--by his
exactions and treacheries soon overreached himself. Events were
hastening to the overthrow of Mahdism. Sheiks and tribes fell away
from the Khalifa and returned to the fold of orthodox Mohammedanism.
By 1889, as an aggressive force seeking to enlarge its boundaries,
Mahdism was spent. Thereafter, stage by stage, its power dwindled,
although Omdurman, the dervish capital, remained the headquarters of
the strongest native military power that North Africa has ever known.
Lord Cromer has been blamed for many things he did, and much that he
left undone, during the earlier days of Mahdism. A fuller knowledge of
the whole circumstances justifies my saying that, as custodian of
_British interests_, he acted throughout with singular prudence and
great forbearance. It was not with his wish or approval that several
of the untoward expeditions against the dervishes were undertaken. It
is permissible to regret that, from a variety of causes, the British
Government engaged in more than one ill-considered and irresolute
campaign for the destruction of Mahdism. Much treasure and countless
thousands of lives were foolishly squandered and all without the
least compensating advantage. The barren results of the Soudan
campaigns directed from the War Office in Pall Mall form too painful a
subject for discussion. It is only fair to say, that the military
officials' hands may have been much hampered from Downing Street.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, WADY HALFA.]
As I have stated elsewhere, it was not until 1896 that the serious
reconquest of the Soudan was begun. Before then there had been, as Mr
Gladstone after all appropriately termed them, "military operations,"
but not a state of war. He might have called them "blood-spilling
enterprises," for they were only that and no more. The re-occupation
of the province of Dongola in 1896, freed the Nile up to Merawi, and
gave the disaffected Kababish, Jaalin and riverain tribesmen a chance
of reverting to their allegiance to the Khedive. It also enabled the
Sirdar to pass his gunboats farther up the river. Another gain issuing
from the forward movement was that his right was secured from serious
attack. Then followed the building of the wonderful Wady Halfa direct
desert railway towards Abu Hamid, Berber, and Dakhala at the mouth of
the Atbara. It was the 1897 campaign which put all these places into
the Sirdar's hands. During that year's high Nile, he passed his
gunboats over the long stretch of cataracts betwixt Merawi and Abu
Hamid, and ran them up the river where they co-operated with the land
forces, regulars and friendlies. Nay more, the steamers were set to do
a double duty: convey stores to the advanced posts and assail and
harass the dervishes, pushing as far south as Shendy and Shabluka,
the Sixth Cataract. By prodigies of labour and enterprise the railroad
was speedily constructed to Abu Hamid, then on to Berber, and thence
to Dakhala. The whole situation became greatly simplified the moment
the line reached Abu Hamid. From the first, the question of dealing a
death-blow to Mahdism with British-led troops had turned upon the
solution of the transport problem. The through rail and river
connection once established from Cairo _via_ Wady Halfa to Abu Hamid
put an end forever to all serious difficulty of providing adequate
supplies for the troops. From Abu Hamid the Nile is navigable far
south for many months during the year. Then again, the occupation of
Abu Hamid unlocked the Korosko desert caravan route and drew more wary
and recanting dervishes away from the Khalifa. Following the capture
of Abu Hamid, Berber was promptly taken for Egypt by the friendlies,
and the Suakim-Berber trade route, which had been closed for many
years, was re-opened.
The end was slowly drawing near, for the Sirdar was closing the lines
and mustering his forces for a final blow. Railroad construction went
forward apace. At the rate of from one to two miles a day track was
laid so as to get the line up to Dakhala. Meanwhile, workshops were
being erected at suitable points, and three additional screw gunboats,
built in England, were re-fitted for launching. The flotilla was
becoming formidable; it comprised 13 vessels, stern-wheelers and
screw-steamers, all armed with cannon and machine guns and protected
by bullet-proof shields.
Believing there was a chance to wreck the railroad and capture
outposts and stores, Mahmoud, a nephew and favourite general of the
Khalifa's, led a powerful dervish army from Shendy north to raid the
country to and beyond Berber. In spite of the gunboats, after
disposing of the recalcitrant Jaalins, Mahmoud crossed the Nile at
Metemmeh to the opposite bank. Accompanied by the veteran rebel, Osman
Digna, he quitted Aliab, marching to the north-east with 10,000
infantry, riflemen and spearmen, ten small rifled brass guns and 4000
cavalry. It was his intention to cross the Atbara about 30 miles up
from the Nile, and fall upon the flank and rear of the Sirdar's
detached and outlying troops, killing them in detail. He reckoned too
confidently and without full knowledge. Using the steamers and the
railways the Sirdar quickly concentrated his whole force, bringing men
rapidly up from Wady Halfa and the province of Dongola. The entrenched
Egyptian camp at the junction of the Atbara with the Nile was
strengthened, and General Gatacre's brigade of British troops was
moved on to Kunur, where Macdonald's and Maxwell's brigades also
repaired. Mahmoud had ultimately to be attacked in his own chosen
fortified camp. His army was destroyed and he himself was taken
prisoner. So closed the unexpected Atbara campaign in March last.
Thereafter, as the Khalifa showed no intention of inviting fresh
disaster by sending down another army to attack, the Sirdar despatched
his troops into summer rest-camps. Dry and shady spots were selected
by the banks of the Nile between Berber and Dakhala. One or another of
the numberless deserted mud villages was usually chosen for
headquarters and offices. With these for a nucleus, the battalion or
brigade encampment was pitched in front and the quarters were fenced
about with cut mimosa thorn-bush, forming a zereba. All along the
Upper Nile, wherever there is a strip of cultivable land, or where
water can be easily lifted from the river or wells for irrigation,
there the natives had villages of mud and straw huts. In many places,
for miles following miles, these hamlets fringe the river's banks,
sheltered amidst groves of mimosa and palms. The fiendish cruelty and
wanton destructiveness of the dervishes, who, not satiated with
slaughtering the villagers--men, women and children--further glutted
their fury by firing the homesteads and cutting down the date palms,
resulted in depopulating the country. Ignorant and fanatical in their
religious frenzy to convert mankind to their new-found creed, the
Mahdists held that the surest way to rid the world forthwith of all
unbelievers lay in making earth too intolerable to be lived in.
These native dwellings, when cleaned, were not uncomfortable abodes.
As the flat roofs were thickly covered with mats and grass whilst,
except the doorway, the openings in the mud-walls were small, they
were even in the glare of noontide heat, pleasantly cool and shady.
The troops found that straw huts or tukals afforded far better
protection than the tents from the sun and from dust-storms. So it
came about that, copying the example set by the fellaheen and black
soldiers, "Tommy Atkins" also built himself shelters, and "lean-to's"
of reeds, palm leaves and straw. Drills and field exercises were
relaxed, and the troops had time to rig up alfresco stages and
theatres and to enjoy variety entertainments provided by comrades with
talent for minstrelsy and the histrionic arts. Meanwhile the
preparations for the final campaign against Mahdism were not
slackened. Vast quantities of supplies and material of war were stored
at Dakhala. Outposts were pushed forward and Shendy was occupied,
whilst Metemmeh was held by friendly Jaalin tribesmen, who had
suffered much at the Khalifa's hands. The Bayuda desert route also had
been cleared of dervishes by these and by neighbouring tribesmen. On
the direct track from Korti to Omdurman, outlying wells and oases were
in possession of the Kababish and their allies who had broken away
from Abdullah's tyranny. The whirligig of time had transformed the
equality preachings, and "unity in the faith" of Mahdism into the
unbridled supremacy of the Baggara and especially the Taaisha branch
of that sept over all the people of the Soudan. They alone were
licensed to rob, ravish and murder with impunity. It was the natural
sequence of lawless society. Once the foe they leagued to plunder and
kill had been disposed of, they turned and rent each other. Abdullah
being a Taaisha, he, as a prop to his own pretensions, set them in
authority over all the races of the Soudan. One by one, however, Arab
clansmen and blacks repented and deserted Mahdism.
The time was ripe for ending the mad mutiny against government and
civilisation. July is the period of high Nile in the upper reaches,
and the Sirdar planned that his army should be ready to move forward
by then. At that date all was in readiness. The Egyptian army which
was to take the field consisted of one division of four brigades, each
of four battalions with artillery, cavalry and camelry. Besides these
there were two brigades of British infantry--Gatacre's division--a
regiment of British cavalry, the 21st Lancers, and two and a half
English batteries, with many Maxims. It was known that Abdullah had
called into Omdurman all his best men and meant giving battle.
CHAPTER II.
DAYS OF WAITING AND PREPARATION.
"Everything comes to him who waits," but the weariness of it is
sometimes terrible. Oftentimes waiting is vain, without accompaniment
of hard work. The Sirdar made deliberate choice to carve out a career
in Egypt. He did so in the dark days when the outlook was the reverse
of promising, in nearly every aspect, to a man of action. Abdication
of our task of reconstruction was in the air, the withdrawal of the
British army of occupation a much-talked-of calamity. Through every
phase of the situation, Kitchener stuck to his guns, keeping to
himself his plans for the reconquest of the Soudan. He wrought and
watched while he waited, selecting and surrounding himself with able
officers, and exacting from each diligence and obedience in the
discharge of their duties. The Dongola campaign and the fortuitous one
of the Atbara against Mahmoud greatly strengthened his position. There
might be further delay, but his triumphal entry into Omdurman and the
downfall of the Khalifa were certain. The Sirdar had but to ask, to
receive all the material and men he wished for. He adhered to his
early decision to employ only as many British troops as were actually
necessary to stiffen the Khedivial army, and no more.
After the battle and victory of the Atbara in the spring, the British
troops, or Gatacre's brigade, marched back from Omdabiya by easy
stages to the Nile. The wounded and sick were conveyed into the base
hospital at Dakhala, whence they were afterwards sent down to
Ginenetta or, as it then was, Rail-head. From that point they were, as
each case required, forwarded by train and steamboat to Wady Halfa and
Cairo. It was at Darmali, 12 miles or more north of Dakhala, that the
British soldiers went into summer-quarters. On the 14th of April the
brigade mustered 3818 strong, made up as follows:--833 Camerons, 826
Seaforths, 969 Lincolns, and 665 Warwicks. Two companies of Warwicks
had been left in the Dongola province when the advance was made.
Besides the muster of battalions enumerated, the brigade included a
Maxim battery, detachments of the Army Service Corps, and other
details. The "Tommies" settled down in camp, living under peace
conditions, for with the rout of Mahmoud's men, the nearest dervish
force worth considering was as far off as Shabluka Cataract. Everybody
was bidden to make himself as snug as possible. Outlying houses and
walls were thrown down to secure a free circulation of air. As for
sunlight, that was shut out wherever practicable. The first home
drafts to make up for losses arrived at Darmali on the 23rd of April.
About 130 men then joined. It was thought desirable to maintain the
British battalions at their full strength, and some of them mustered
nearly one thousand strong. As the percentage of sick was continuous,
and the rate increased as the campaign progressed, the actual roll of
men "fit for duty" grew less as we neared Omdurman. Of course,
"youths," and all the "weedy ones," were in the first instance
rejected by the army doctors, and were never permitted to go to the
front. Men over 25 years of age were preferred, and it so happened
that both the Grenadier Guards and the Northumberland Fusiliers had a
high average of relatively old soldiers, and consequently few sick.
From the end of April until the end of May, dull hot days in the
Soudan, leave was granted to officers to run down to Alexandria and
have a "blow" at San Stefano, by the sea-side. There were quite a
number of deaths in the brigade shortly after the men got into camp,
the customary reaction having set in on account of the exposure and
strain precedent to the victory of the Atbara. To reduce the numbers
quartered at Darmali, the Lincolns and Warwicks, on the 19th of April,
were marched a mile farther north along the Nile, to Es Selim, where
they formed a separate encampment, the Camerons and Seaforths
remaining at the first-named place. The average daily number of sick
in the brigade at that period was 100 to 150. On one occasion there
were 190 men reported unfit for duty. Most of the cases were not of a
serious nature, and the patients speedily recovered and returned to
their places in the ranks. There was no lack of stores and even
dainties at the camps, for supplies were carried up by caravan,
escorted by Jaalin friendlies, from Berber and elsewhere. Much of the
sickness in the army was probably due to the men recklessly drinking
unboiled and unfiltered Nile water. At that season the river had sunk
into its narrowest bed, and there were backwashes and sluggish
channels full of light-green tinted water. More filters were procured,
and extra care was taken with all the water used for domestic
purposes.
In May there were route marches twice a week, the brigade going off at
5.30 a.m. and returning about 7.30 a.m., all in the cool of the
morning or such bearable temperature as there was in the 24 hours'
daily round in that month. During these exercises the troops had
plenty of firing practice, being taught to blaze away at bushes, and
occasionally at targets representing dervishes. In that way the
remainder of the million of tip-filed Lee-Metford bullets were
disposed of, for it had been arranged that there was to be a new
cartridge case for the Omdurman campaign. The latest pattern
"man-stopper" was a bullet fashioned with a hollow or crater at the
point, the nickel casing being perforated.
So the days droned past for the British soldiers, with little to do
beyond essaying the impossible of trying to keep cool. It was often
otherwise with the Egyptians, for they had to assist in getting the
railroad through to Dakhala from Ginenetta, in forwarding boats and
stores, and later on in establishing wood stations and cutting fuel
for the steamers. The first of the tropical summer rain showers fell
at Darmali on the 27th of May. On the 18th of June Major-General
Gatacre went off on a shooting excursion up the Atbara, taking with
him a party of ten officers and a few orderlies. They found relatively
little big game but plenty of gazelle and birds. The bodies of the
slain in Mahmoud's zereba at Omdabiya still lay where they fell,
unburied, but dried up and mummified by the sun. Natives had stripped
the place and carried off everything left behind by us. A number of
dervishes were seen lurking about, part of the defeated army of the
enemy, who were afraid to return to Omdurman, anticipating that the
Khalifa would have them killed. Indeed, it appeared that numbers of
the runaways had settled down at New Hilgi, and were attempting to
cultivate. As for the four or five thousand dervish cavalry that
Mahmoud had with him, they also never returned to Omdurman. Quite
probably they made their way back to their original homes in small
bands, rightly believing that Mahdism was doomed. Assured of pardon
and good treatment at our hands, fourteen of the Mahdists and a number
of women came in with General Gatacre's people. No attempt was made by
the dervishes in the neighbourhood to "snipe" the party. They returned
to Darmali on the 27th of June. With the sun gone north came the
rising of the Nile and fresh breezes. The gunboats kept diligently
patrolling the river, watching for any signs of movement on the part
of the Khalifa and his forces. The enemy were reported to be gathering
in large numbers at Omdurman for the coming conflict. As Shendy was
held by a small force of Egyptians, and Metemmeh nominally by the
Jaalin for us, frequent visits were made to those posts. Later on,
other shooting parties went up to Omdabiya and found that there was an
increase in the numbers of natives about, and that flocks and herds
were to be seen grazing in the vicinity. The tribesmen showed that
they had abandoned the Khalifa by tearing the dervish patches off
their clothing. All being quiet, and peace assured in the Dongola
province, the two detached companies of the Warwickshire left Korti
and joined their comrades in Es Selim camp.
July was a very busy month. The river flotilla and transport service
had all to be thoroughly organised for the impending advance. Gunboats
received the final touches and completed their armament. The steamers,
barges and giassas, native sailing craft, underwent thorough repair.
More and still more munitions of war and provisions were sent forward
and stored at Dakhala. That post grew into a formidable camp. The
three new twin-screw gunboats built on the Thames, besides other
ship-work reconstruction, were put together near Abadia, a village
above the Fifth Cataract and north of Berber. The railroad had been
hastily laid and completed to Abadia after the battle of Atbara.
Thither the sections of the barges and steamers needed for the
campaign had been sent by rail from Wady Halfa. Before that date,
engineering and other workshops had been erected at Abadia, which,
because of its favourable position, was chosen for a permanent camp
and industrial centre. Base-hospitals, too, were built there, in order
that the wounded and sick might travel as far as possible by water.
Astonishing as had been the rapidity with which the Wady Halfa Abu
Hamid portion of the desert railroad was laid, smarter work still was
done carrying the line through to the Atbara. The utmost energy was
put forth, after the defeat of Mahmoud, by the Director of Railways,
Major Girouard, R.E., to get the track completed to Dakhala, the
junction of the Atbara with the Nile. Not only the railroad battalion,
which was nearly 3000 strong, but every available Khedivial soldier,
laboured in some way or other at the task. They put their hearts and
thews to the toil, for it was recognised that its completion not only
solved the transport problem, but was a swift and sure means of return
to Egypt. The railroad battalion worked wonders in grading and laying.
Fellaheen and negro, they showed a vim and intelligence in
track-making that Europeans could not surpass. Native lads, some in
their early teens, clothed with little beyond a sense of their own
importance and "army ammunition boots," many sizes too big for their
feet, adjusted the fish-plates and put on the screw nuts. Then, for
those who bore the heavy burden of rails and sleepers and carried
material for the road bed, there were licensed fools, mummers, and
droll mimics, who by their antics revived the lagging spirits of the
gangs. There is an unsuspected capacity for mimicry in what are called
savage men. I have seen Red Indians give excellent pantomimic
entertainments, and aborigines in other lands exhibit high mumming
talent. In the railroad battalion there was an eccentric negro who was
a very king of jesters. From the Sirdar and the Khalifa downwards--for
he was an ex-dervish and had played pranks in Omdurman--none escaped
a parodying portrayal of their mannerisms. He imitated the tones of
their voice and twisted and contorted his face and body to resemble
the originals. Nothing was sacred from that mimic any more than from a
sapper. He showed us Osman Digna's little ways, and gave ghastly
imitations of trials, mutilations and executions by hanging in the
Mahdist camps. And these things were for relaxation, though maybe they
served as a reminder of the dervishes' brutal rule. There were
vexations and jokes of another sort for Major Girouard and those held
tightly responsible for the rapid construction and regular running of
the material trains, as indeed all trains were. When the line had been
laid beyond Abu Dis, for a time known as Rail-head, the camp and
quarters were moved on to the next station. Abu Dis sank in dignity
and population until only a corporal and two men were left to guard
the place and work the sidings. The desert railway being a single
track, frequent sidings are indispensable for the better running of
trains. All the control for working the system was vested in the Wady
Halfa officials. One night there came to them over the wires an
alarmist message to send no more trains to Abu Dis. It was the
corporal who urgently rang up his chiefs. What could it mean? Had they
deserted, or, more likely, were the dervishes raiding the district? A
demand was made from Wady Halfa for the corporal to explain what had
happened. His answer was naive, if not satisfactory: "The wild beasts
have come down from the hills, and we really cannot accept any trains
from any direction." "What do you mean?" was again queried back. So
the corporal and his two men responded: "Sir, there are wild beasts
all around the hut and tent; what can we do? We dare not stir out."
"Light fires, you magnoons," (fools), was the final rejoinder, and the
train service went forward as usual. It appeared that the hyenas and
wolves, wont to snap up a living around the men's camp, bereft of
their pickings were in a state of howling starvation, and had turned
up and made an appeal, by no means mute, to the station guard, which
the latter failed to understand or appreciate. In a remarkably short
space of time the hyenas and pariah dogs had adopted the habit of
scavengering around all the camps and snifting along the track, after
the trains, for stray scraps.
[Illustration: DARMALI (BRITISH BRIGADE SUMMER QUARTERS).]
I returned to Cairo early in July, where, having paid into the
Financial Military Secretary's hands the L50 security required of war
correspondents, intended to cover cost of railway fares south of Wady
Halfa, and for any forage drawn from the stores, I received the
official permit to proceed to the front. All the restrictions as to
the number of correspondents allowed up, which were imposed during the
Atbara campaign, were singularly enough removed, and the "very open
door" policy substituted. In consequence, there was a large number,
over sixteen in all, of so-called representatives of the press at the
front. As an old correspondent aptly observed, some of them
represented anything but journals or journalism, the name of a
newspaper being used merely as a cover for notoriety and medal
hunting. Having secured my warrant to join the Sirdar's army, I
started from Cairo for Assouan and Wady Halfa. The headquarters at
that date were still in Wady Halfa. On the 21st of July the first
detachments of the reinforcements that were to make up the British
force to a division, which Major-General Gatacre was to command, left
Cairo for the south. Thereafter, nearly day by day up to the 9th of
August inclusive, troops were sent forward. These consisted of
artillery, cavalry, the 21st Lancers, baggage animals, Royal
Engineers, Army Service Corps, Medical Corps, and the four battalions
of infantry which were to form the second British brigade. The brigade
in question comprised 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, the 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, and the 2nd
Battalion Rifle Brigade, together with a battery of Maxims manned by a
detachment of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Brigadier-General the
Honourable N. G. Lyttelton, C.B., commanded the second brigade, whilst
Major-General Gatacre's former command, the 1st British Brigade, was
taken over by Brigadier-General J. Wauchope. The first brigade was
made up of the Lincolns, Warwicks, Seaforths, and Camerons, with six
Maxims. To prepare for eventualities, and clench the special training
he had bestowed upon his men, Major-General Gatacre issued a printed
slip of notes, or hints, to his men. I give the salient points of that
production:--
"1. As the strength of a European force lies in the occupation of and
in movement over open ground, which gives it advantage of fire, so the
strength of a dervish force lies in fighting in depressions of the
ground, or in a jungle country out of which they can pour suddenly and
quickly their thousands of spear-armed warriors, who, unless checked
by a murderous fire, constitute a grave danger, even to a perfectly
disciplined force.
"It follows, then, that a force halted for the night must always be
protected where possible by a zereba, which will check under fire the
attacking dervishes.
"2. That a cleared zone be prepared along outer edge of the zereba.
"3. That a force, when moving, should march at a respectful distance
from jungle cover.
"4. It should have the ground in its front and on its flanks searched
out by cavalry, mounted infantry, or native levies.
"5. That when mounted troops have found the enemy, they must
invariably clear the front of the infantry to enable the latter to use
their rifles.
"6. That brigades must be so trained that each battalion and
individual soldier must know how to get into the best formation with
the least possible delay for meeting the attack of the spearmen, who,
it must be remembered, can move at least three times as quickly as a
British soldier can double.
"To carry out the above, a high standard of training and steadiness is
required, and battalions must be provided with a liberal supply of
cutting tools, felling axes, hand axes and bill hooks to enable them,
the instant the battalion marches into bivouac, to cut down small
trees or strong branches of prickly trees with which to construct a
thorn fence.
"Piquets must be withdrawn at dusk, otherwise they might get
surrounded and cut off, or, in falling back, would possibly suffer
from the defenders of the zereba.
"The protection of the zereba against surprise must depend on the
vigilance of its sentries and piquets which line the fence, and whose
strength will naturally depend on the proximity of the dervishes to
the force. With reliable information, and the ground properly
reconnoitred, a patrol of ten men per company, patrolling constantly
and noiselessly along the inner edge of the zereba, is adequate, so
long as the enemy's dem is say 15 miles distant (a day's march); when
nearer than this, the strength of the piquets to remain awake and
under arms will depend upon the circumstances of the moment.
"All night duties of this nature should be found by companies, so that
portions of the line along its whole length shall be on duty. Words of
command and orders must be given in a low tone; there must be no
shouting and no fires burning till the hour arrives for making the
morning tea. Men should always be allowed to smoke, but should be
warned of the danger of fire in zereba by a cigarette or match-end
thrown into dry grass.
"Officers must sleep immediately behind their men; a certain number
will always be on duty.
"All, officers and men, must sleep in their clothes, boots and
accoutrements, and each man must have his rifle with him. None but
sentries' should be loaded, and bayonets should not be fixed, even by
the patrols, except when there is expectancy of attack. Under no
circumstances should men sleep with their bayonets fixed, or serious
accidents will occur.
"And here, one word about 'alarms.' I do not refer to the assembly by
bugle sound, but what is ordinarily called a panic, in other words a
disgraceful absence of discipline and self-control, which, while
ruining the reputation of the corps concerned as a reliable battalion,
may be the cause of serious mischief, and must be disastrous to the
confidence the General Officer places in its officers and men.
"One of the great advantages accruing to an army on service is the
close association of the officer with the man; each learns something
from the other, and the officer will, in after years, appreciate the
value of the habit he gets into of talking to his men and of storing
up in his mind all sorts of dodges and hints, which assist troops in
the field to make themselves comfortable; more than this, it is in the
field only that the officer can get the opportunity of instilling into
the men's minds the necessity for deliberation under fire, the high
standard of the regiment, its past history, its superiority in
everything to all other regiments in the division, and his confidence
in his men to maintain such a standard of excellence. In many
expeditions it has happened that shots have been fired at nothing,
night after night, thus disturbing the whole force; such bad habits
must be firmly checked."
Before leaving Cairo I had the opportunity of witnessing a trial of
the new siege guns that were to be used in levelling the walls and
defences of Omdurman. To the eastward of Abbassieh barracks, near the
rifle ranges, 150 feet of stone wall had been erected. It was a
replica of part of the structure which the Khalifa had built around
the tomb of the Mahdi, his own grounds, that of his body-guard, and
the more important buildings situated in the centre of the dervish
capital.
The stout rectangular wall at Omdurman stood with its narrowest side
facing the Nile, and its longest sides ran inland from the river for
about a mile. It was twelve feet in height, and even more in places,
ten feet in thickness at the base, tapering to six feet at the top. It
was a well-made structure, laid in mortar and faced on either side
with dressed limestone blocks.
Shortly after six a.m. on the morning of 22nd July, a large number of
officers assembled at the Abbassieh ranges to watch the result of the
experiments of the sham bombardment. Lieutenant-General Sir Francis
Grenfell and staff, Major-General Lyttelton, and many others were
present. It was arranged that the new 5-inch howitzer battery, with
the "Lyddite" or high explosive shells, was to make the first attempt
to breach or throw down the wall. There were six of these new
howitzers, and they were worked by the 37th Field Battery, commanded
by Major Elmslie. Except that the bore was larger, there was little to
distinguish the pieces from the 15-lb. Maxim-Nordenfeldt automatic
recoil guns used at the battle of the Atbara. The latter cannon,
however, only used cordite, whereas the 5-inch howitzer shells are
filled with a picric compound resembling M. Turpin's melinite. For
over ten years Russia has had 100-lb. howitzer batteries in the field,
firing high explosives. It was the Sirdar who insisted upon the
necessity of being supplied with these light and handy cannon. Neither
the velocity nor the range of their shell-fire is great, but it is
enough--4000 yards or thereby--for all practical purposes, and is
fairly accurate. The explosion of the picric shells was very violent,
and the danger area about 300 yards from where they burst. It has been
found that, with about six or eight mules to draw the guns, the
battery was quite mobile. Egyptian drivers were employed, though the
men serving the guns were all British artillerymen. Even the drivers
of the 32nd Field Battery, commanded by Major Williams, had "gippy"
teamsters. Both batteries were drawn by smart Cyprus mules. The
howitzers opened fire at 750 yards from the wall. With few exceptions,
the Lyddite shells hit the mark. Range is given more by increase or
diminution of the charge than elevation or depression of the
howitzers. The guns kicked viciously and ran back at each discharge.
Bursting violently, the shells threw out big sheets of tawny flame,
followed by showers of stones and a cloud of dust and brownish smoke.
It was possible to see the missiles in their flight and note where
they struck. As each shell rushed through the air it made a noise not
unlike an express train passing under a bridge. There were salvoes of
two or three guns, and huge chunks were knocked out of the wall.
Pieces of flying debris frequently dropped at no great distance from
the gunners. It was plain that the shells were bursting upon impact,
and only blowing away the face of the wall to the depth of but a foot
or two. Had there been thick shells with retarding fuses the structure
might have been breached in two or three rounds.
After a preliminary ten rounds had been fired, the wall was closely
inspected. It was seen that infantry might have clambered over the
debris to the top of the structure and jumped down upon the other
side. A strange feature was that wherever the "Lyddite" explosive
failed to detonate the stones and ground around had been transformed
to a deep chrome colour. The battery was moved closer, to about 350
yards from the wall, and the firing was recommenced at that range.
Much better results were obtained, and the upper part of the wall was
knocked away, and easy, practicable breaches made. One of the other
advantages of these new guns is that with reduced firing charges they
become reliable mortars, and the high explosive shells can be dropped
over a wall or building, so as to drive the defenders from their
works. Not a man would have escaped injury had there been an enemy
behind the wall, for blocks of stone were scattered in all directions.
When the howitzers had finished their practice, six rounds were fired
from two 40-lb. Armstrong guns, which were also ordered to assist in
breaching Omdurman's walls. Next to the 7-lb. screw guns the 40-lb.
Armstrong is reputed to be the most accurate shooting cannon in the
British service. Mounted on lofty carriages, these siege guns were
laid to fire at 800 yards range. Oddly enough, one of the 40-lbs.
scored as high a percentage of misses as the howitzers. The great
velocity of the 40-lb. shells, filled with the slower-bursting
gunpowder, carried them well into the part of the wall aimed at, with
the result that, in a few seconds, they made a good breach. The
morning's experiments were concluded by a detachment of the Royal
Irish Fusiliers, under Captain Churches, firing their Maxims against
targets representing bands of dervishes, the dummy enemy being, as
usual, riddled with bullets.
From Cairo to Dakhala, evidence was not lacking that the form and
movement of preparations for the general advance were growing apace.
Every train and boat going south was overloaded with officers, men,
and transport animals, together with munitions of war galore for the
campaign. The gunboats and deserters brought in reports that the
dervishes were concentrating at Omdurman. The strongly defensible
positions of Shabluka, together with the mud forts, had been evacuated
by the dervishes. Very quickly the Sirdar sent small bodies of troops
up stream to occupy suitable positions for wood-cutting and forming
advance camps. In that way the river pass at the Sixth Cataract was
seized without the long anticipated fight for that difficult bit of
country. The Nile highway was at length in the Sirdar's undisputed
possession up to within thirty miles of Omdurman.
There is no dustier journey by rail, or one of an altogether more
uncomfortable nature, than from Cairo to Shellal. It is bad enough in
the so-called winter season, for you have to breathe an atmosphere of
dust the whole way, and are powdered and almost suffocated before you
reach Luxor. The same trip taken in midsummer, in the stuffy, crowded
carriages of the Egyptian lines, is real martyrdom, or something akin
thereto. High speed or over twenty-five miles an hour is not
attempted. Although the journey ordinarily occupies thirty-two hours,
I was forty hours _en route_. There are no refreshment-bars or
restaurants for the supply of palatable food or drink for the fierce
needs of the passengers. I made some provision for the trip, and
managed to survive it, as I have done before, but I cannot forget its
tortures any more than the newest of new-comers. Not until we reached
Assouan could we secure a fair supply of water and get a bath and an
enjoyable meal. That same afternoon, I, with three other
correspondents, was allowed to take passage on barge No. 9, which,
with two giassas, was taken in tow up to Wady Halfa by a sternwheeler.
Among others proceeding on the craft to join the army were
Major-General Wauchope and Surgeon-General Taylor, and a number of
other army medicoes, fresh in their new dignity as officers of the
"Royal Army Medical Corps." Under the instruction of Surgeon-General
Taylor, Surgeon-Major Wilson was good enough to present each of us
with a packet of first field dressings, a kindness which I
appreciated, but of which I hoped not to have need.
[Illustration: GROUP OF STAFF OFFICERS.--COLONEL WINGATE IN CENTRE.]
CHAPTER III.
MUSTERING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF MAHDISM.
A hackneyism lacks the picturesqueness of originality, but is as
useful in its way as a public road to a desired destination. The
quotation which I am at the moment anxious to make use of is, "The
mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small." Time
the avenger had all but fulfilled the meed of punishment for the evil
day of 26th January 1885, when the streets of Khartoum ran with blood,
and the headless body of General Gordon was left to be hacked and hewn
by ferocious hordes of dervishes. Major-General Sir Herbert H.
Kitchener had so managed that the decisive blow should be delivered in
the most effective manner. Stage by stage he had moved forward and
improved his lines of communication. The advanced base, or point of
departure for the campaign, was no longer Wady Halfa, or Korti in the
province of Dongola, as in 1884, but Dakhala. Nay, with the
unassailable power and command of the Nile his flotilla gave him, it
might be said the real base of the Sirdar's army was where he chose to
fix it, even hard by Omdurman. As for the Khalifa, ruined to some
extent by years of successes and easy victories, he was committing the
fatal military error of over-confidence. He had drawn around him from
all parts of the Soudan the best of his trusty warriors, the pick of
the fighting tribes of Africa. The leaders were mostly sheiks who were
too far committed to hope for pardon and restoration, in the event of
defeat, from the Khedivial Government. Besides, there were still
plenty of ignorant fanatics amongst the chosen "Ansar," or servants of
God, to fire the naturally truculent mass of armed men.
To ensure the smashing of the Mahdists, the Sirdar was leading the
largest and best equipped expedition ever seen south of Wady Halfa.
The river flotilla comprised eleven well-armed steam gunboats. For the
transport of troops and stores beyond Dakhala he had numberless native
craft, giassas, nuggars, several steamers, and specially constructed
iron barges. What with their crews and detachments of British gunners,
engineers, and infantry, each gunboat had a fighting force of about
100 men aboard. These vessels could easily have carried many more
hands; indeed, the newest type of Nile men-o'-war, the twin-screw
steamers, were built to convey a thousand soldiers. The land forces
included over 8000 British troops and fully 15,000 Egyptian and
Soudanese soldiery. In artillery the army was exceptionally strong.
Lieut.-Colonel C. J. Long, R.A., commanding that arm, had practically
eight batteries and ten Maxims at his disposal, not counting the
machine guns, Maxims, attached to the British division. The artillery
included the 32nd Field Battery R.A. of six 15-pounders under Major
Williams; the 37th Field Battery R.A. of six 5-inch howitzers under
Major Elmslie, and two 40-pounders R.A. Armstrong guns under Lieut.
Weymouth. There were also, No. 1 Egyptian Horse Artillery Battery
(Krupps) under Major Young, R.A., of six guns; No. 2 Egyptian Field
(mule) Battery under Major Peake, consisting of six 12 1/2-pounder
Maxim-Nordenfeldt automatic recoil guns, firing when necessary a
double shell, and Egyptian Field Batteries Nos. 3, 4, and 5, each of
six of the same type of guns, under Captain C. G. Stewart, R.A., Major
Lawrie, R.A., and Major de Rougemont, R.A., and two 6-centimetres
Krupps on mules. The ten Maxims, or at least six of them, were mounted
upon galloping carriages drawn by horses. On these vehicles or limbers
the gunners could remain in position and bring the weapons into action
at any moment. Captain Franks had the control of these machine guns,
two of which were, nominally, attached to each Egyptian battery.
Besides the four brigades of Khedivial infantry, together with
artillery, cavalry, and camelry, and minor details, the Egyptian army
also included a large transport column of some 2800 camels and about
as many men.
A new solar-hat, a poke-bonnet sort of head-gear, was designed and
tied on the pates of one thousand transport camels as an experiment to
prevent sickness and sunstroke. Although the brutes have the smallest
modicum of brains, they are very liable to attacks of illness from
heat-exhaustion. That they are born in the tropics confers no
immunity. Strange to say, on the march south from Assouan, of a
thousand and odd only one animal succumbed to sunstroke, and that was
a camel that had no sun-bonnet. If anything could have added to the
naturally lugubrious expression of those lumbering freight carriers,
it was the jaunty poke-bonnets with the attenuated "Oh, let us be
joyful" visages grinning beneath. The transport department was managed
by Colonel F. W. Kitchener, brother of the Sirdar. His care it was,
when the army actually took the field, to see that the supplies of
food, forage, and ammunition advanced with the columns. As a matter of
fact, in that respect the campaign, as at the Atbara, was admirably
ordered, and the troops lacked for nothing in reason. There were few
mules and donkeys employed in the baggage trains, the bulk of the
stores being camel-borne. It was the free and full use of water
transport, by the Nile, that enabled supplies to be sent on rapidly
and regularly with the army when the troops advanced beyond Rail-head.
Besides the regular army which was to proceed up the left or west bank
and attack Omdurman, there was a column of armed friendlies who were
to operate against the dervishes quartered between Shendy and
Khartoum, by the east or right bank of the Nile. Nor were the bands of
tribesmen upon that shore the only auxiliaries who had volunteered to
assist in overthrowing Mahdism. Jaalin scouts and runners put
themselves under the Sirdar's orders to scour the front and flanks of
the army, at least up to Kerreri. Colonel Parsons, R.A., was to lead
a mixed force of fellaheen soldiers, Abyssinian levies, ex-Italian
Ascari, and Arabs from Kassala to attack Gedarif and menace Khartoum
from the east.
There was a degree of soreness in several British battalions at not
being allowed to bear part in the campaign. The troops forming the
Army of Occupation believed that they should have had the first call.
Among these were the Royal Irish Fusiliers. It had been anticipated
that as they were next on the army list for active foreign service,
they would certainly not be passed over. Instead of receiving orders
to march, they were left severely alone, another Fusilier battalion
being sent in their place. The proceeding gave rise to much bickering
and bitterness in certain quarters. An attempt, I believe, was made to
send half of the Royal Irish Fusiliers to the front, but that fell
through owing to various causes. According to the War Office
requirements, the Royal Irish Fusiliers were not in a satisfactory
condition. There were serious drawbacks which would have terribly
militated against the effective employment of the battalion as a
first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but
the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I
have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to
serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to
individuals. But the case was one where they should not have
temporised in any way. As matters turned out, the Royal Irish
Fusiliers were very angry at being passed over at the eleventh hour
for another regiment. For several generations they have never had a
chance of being in action. They were fairly spoiling for a fight, and
it was hard, at the last moment, to have the road to glory closed in
their faces for the deficiencies of the few.
He whom Arabs and blacks of the whole Soudan call the "Grand Master of
the Art of Flight," our old friend Osman Digna, was with the Khalifa
in Omdurman. Osman was wily and experienced, and his counsel, had it
been listened to by his chief, would have added to the difficulties of
carrying the Mahdist stronghold by assault. I have some knowledge of
that astute ex-slavedealer and trader's ways in the Eastern Soudan and
elsewhere. He, many years ago, even condescended to honour me with his
correspondence and an invitation to join the true believers, _i.e._,
the Mahdists. I have no doubt he meant well, but the land and the
dervishes were alike abhorrent to me. Osman had quietly come to the
wise conclusion that Mahdism was near its end. With his usual
prescience he made his own arrangements without consulting the
Khalifa. Early in the year he had all his women and children and such
wealth as he could smuggle out of the country sent over to Jeddah.
There his family are now living under the protection of some of his
old friends and kinsmen. When Omdurman fell he had no intention, the
Hadendowas said, of sharing the Khalifa's further fortunes in hiding
among the wilds of Kordofan. He would instead try and escape across
the Red Sea and rejoin his family. The Arab clansmen are like the
Hielan' caterans; they may fight and quarrel with one another, but
unless there is a blood feud it is unlikely they will help either the
English or the Egyptians to bag old Osman Digna. If the Turk gets him
for a subject, well, the Sublime Porte is likely to be deeply sorry
for it later on. "Fresh troubles in Yemen," or elsewhere in the
Arabian Peninsula, will be amongst the headlines of news from that
quarter once Osman the plotter finds his feet again after his last
flight. After the Atbara he just missed being taken by the skin of his
teeth, so to speak. His camp letters and private correspondence were
all secured. It was in this way: When the news of the Atbara victory
reached Kassala, Captain Benson and a party of about 200 Abyssinian
irregulars set out to see whether Osman Digna and his more immediate
followers were not trying to make their way back to Omdurman, via
Aderamat and Abu Delek. It may be recollected that the fugitive Shiekh
had established a camp at the last-named place after he had been
driven out of the Eastern Soudan. Sure enough, Captain Benson and the
irregulars came up with Osman Digna and 400 of his people encamped
near the Atbara. They called on them to surrender, but that they would
not do. A running fight began, in the course of which Osman, his
nephew Mousa and many more escaped. The Abyssinians, however, killed
and captured over 200 of the dervish leader's followers, and returned
in triumph with the captives and spoils. I am told that Mousa Digna,
though he watched the fight in question, never fired a shot. The tale
goes, that he has never drawn sword or trigger against us since we
gave him his life at the battle of Gemaizeh, near Suakin. That
morning I found Mousa, shot through the stomach, reclining upon the
ground. He was still truculent, and brandishing his spear. The
Soudanese were anxious to despatch him forthwith, and fired several
shots at him, the aim of which I spoiled by direct interference. I had
even then difficulty in getting Mousa to lie down quietly, having to
show him my revolver. Finally, he partly realised the situation. He
was taken up, carried into Suakin, carefully attended to, fed upon a
milk diet, and, in the end, recovered and returned to his Uncle Osman
and the dervishes. It has always been upon my mind that I was therein
instrumental in furnishing a dervish recruit to the cause of furious
anarchy, and I am relieved to think Mousa is not without compunction,
if not a decent modicum of conscience. But your proper Hadendowa is
not a Baggara.
"Three removals are worse than a fire," and it is much the same in
campaigning. Constant trudging to and fro, making and breaking camps
with the hardships of marches and raw ground for bivouacs, furnish a
bigger mortality bill than an ordinary battle. One of the smart things
done by the Sirdar, which served to show that he had closely knit all
the ends of the new frontier lines together, was to bring troops up
from the Dongola province and the Red Sea Littoral, to swell the
strength of his army in the field. The 5th Egyptian battalion under
Colonel Abd El Borham marched across from Suakin to Berber in eighteen
days. It was not by any means sought to make it a forced march. The
Fifth was accompanied by a company, 100 men and animals, of the Camel
Corps and had 40 baggage camels for ordinary transport. Leisurely, day
by day, they tramped along over the 250 odd miles of rock and sand
that intervene betwixt the Nile and the sea. Hadendowa and Bishaim
tribesmen were friendly, and scouts led them in the best tracks
whether they tramped by night or by day. At one place they had to make
a long forced march as the water in the wells had been exhausted by a
previous caravan. In time to come, with a little outlay, new wells
will be dug and an abundant supply of water provided along the whole
route. Later on, the 5th Egyptian battalion marched up from Berber to
Dakhala camp. The men were tall, muscular fellaheen. They were, as has
become the custom in Egypt since the army has been officered by the
Queen's soldiers, played into quarters on this occasion by a native
Soudanese band to the swinging tune of "O, dem Golden Slippers."
It is warm enough in Lower Egypt in July to be uncomfortable, and to
turn the most obdurate into a melting mood. Assouan has the deserved
reputation of being hotter in that month than Aden, the Persian Gulf,
or--well, any other hot place. So, as I have said before, the British
troops were not required to do more than the minimum of duty at that
period. Decidedly "circumstances alter cases," even in matters
military. I hope I may be pardoned for these recurring quotations and
saws. The intolerably fervent solar heat of the Soudan at that season
did not admit of much originality in thought, expression, or act. One
of my companions was a veritable modern Sancho Panza, and in one's
limp, mental, noontide condition his sapient "instances" were
catching. When he left Cairo, as he confided to me, though it was warm
enough there, he decided not to buy too thin clothing lest he might
catch cold. He therefore purchased articles that even in England would
be called woolly and comfortable. Later on, as he reclined upon his
couch in a thrice-raised Turkish bath temperature, he lamented that he
"could not catch cold" even in a state of nature or next to it. He no
longer wondered at Sydney Smith's wish to sit in his bones, and
thought that expression would have acquired additional force if the
witty divine had added "packed in ice."
CHAPTER IV.
BY THE WAY--FROM CAIRO TO DAKHALA.
Ten days from London to the junction of the Atbara with the Nile: so
far from England and yet so near. By-and-by, no doubt, the Brindisi
mail, speeding in connection with the Khartoum express, will make the
run in seven or eight days. From England to Port Said is now but a
matter of four days by the new Peninsular and Oriental service. It
took me six days from Cairo to reach Dakhala. The officials prefer to
know the place as "Atbara Camp." There is no absolute rule for the
bestowal of proper names, or at least no practice one need care about
in the Soudan, so I prefer to dub the locality by its native title of
Dakhala, or Dakhelha. It saves a word in telegraphing, and there is
more fitness in calling that dusty, dirty enclosure by the less
euphonious name.
One could not but note what a wondrous change in the military and
political situation had been wrought in the land since 1884-85.
Railways had solved every difficulty of dealing with the dervishes.
Quite easily nowadays the remote provinces of the whilom great
Egyptian equatorial empire can be reached and governed. With ordinary
care under the altered conditions millions of Arabs and blacks can be
transformed from chronic-rebellious into trusty loyal subjects. There
has been bloodguiltiness and to spare in the Soudan since 1883-84,
therefore the rehabilitation of the country through the setting up of
just government will be in the nature of discharging a duty long
incumbent upon Great Britain. From the Atbara southward, the Niles and
their tributaries are open to steam navigation the year round. The
possession of these noble waterways, which extend over thousands of
miles, includes the fee-simple of sovereignty in the fertile lands of
the two Nile basins and their commerce. By admirable foresight and
indomitable Anglo-Saxon persistence the Sirdar had achieved a unique
position in African conquest. He had got together an armed force "fit
to go anywhere and to do anything." The heart of Africa was his, to
loose or to bind. Of all the terrible railway rides in the world, for
dirt and discomfort, none compares with the trip from Cairo to Luxor
and Assouan. The carriages are stuffy and unclean, and during the
whole journey one stifles in an opaque atmosphere of grit mixed with
the sweepings of the ages. The calcined earths quickly cushion the
seats, powder you from head to foot, and fill your pockets and every
other receptacle with soil enough to make you feel like a landed
proprietor--or, at any rate, rich enough in loam to lay out a suburban
garden. With all the accessories at hand for the creation of an acrid
and measureless thirst, neither the railway authorities nor private
enterprise have had the wit as yet to provide travellers with the
means of mitigating their sufferings. It is little short of a horror
to think of that journey of over forty hours' duration, which had to
be endured without the succour to be found in a refreshment-room
where, for a consideration, could be got a sparkling cool drink or a
mouthful of passable victuals. Were it to take me a month to travel
the distance by river, if time permitted I had rather adventure next
time upon the Nile than ever go by train over that line again. I
confess I have made the journey by rail frequently but it becomes
really more unendurable each trip. Of course I laid in stores of
liquids and solids for the voyage. I ought to have known better, but
one thinks nothing of the toothache when it is past. The mineral
waters became too hot to drink, and not quite near enough the
boiling-point to make good tea of, whilst, as for the provisions, such
as got not too high, were so swathed in layers of questionable dust
and grit as to be repulsive. Keeping even passably tidy was
impossible, and in personal cleanliness a London scavenger could give
a traveller by rail from Cairo to Assouan many points. It was at Wady
Halfa that I got booked in the way-bill for Dakhala, or Atbara Camp,
390 miles away. The construction of the Halfa-Atbara line was, as I
have said before, a masterpiece of military strategy, the credit for
which is due to the Sirdar. By-and-by a railway bridge will span the
Atbara at Dakhala, and the iron way will be laid into Khartoum. The
170 miles betwixt the Atbara and Khartoum offer no difficulties, and
the line will be laid within a year from the time when the money is
granted the Sirdar for its construction.
Since the foregoing was written, the requisite amount has been voted
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, and the contracts for material have been
issued and signed. About a quarter of a million sleepers have to be
delivered in Egypt before the end of June 1899. The Atbara and forty
small khors will be bridged, and the work be completed in twelve
months. It is intended that the terminus shall be on the east bank
opposite Khartoum.
All the trains on the Halfa-Atbara line carried goods, ordinary
passengers being incidental. Four of my colleagues, Major Sitwell, of
the Egyptian army, and myself got places in a horse-box. In the next
truck to us, likewise a horse-box, were five English officers,
returning to duty with Gatacre's, or rather Wauchope's, brigade at
Darmali. In that same horse-box truck we five contrived to cook, eat,
sleep, and dress for two round days, for, as I have stated, there were
no restaurants or buffets within 1000 miles of the desert railway. The
wayside stations were but sidings or halting-places where the
locomotives drew coal and water, of which small supplies were usually
stored under an Egyptian corporal's guard. Ours was a long and heavy
train, and more than once on the up grade to No. 6 or Summit station
out from Halfa the engine came to a standstill, "to recover its
breath," as the negroes said. In the horse-box we got along together
for the most part very comfortably, accommodating ourselves to the
situation. Such a picnic as we had then made it less of a puzzle to
the common understanding how certain creatures are able to do with a
tight-fitting shell for their house and home. If Major Girouard, R.E.,
had not left the direction of the Soudan military railways--which
under the Sirdar he built--to join the Board of the Egyptian lines, we
should, I believe, have had better provision made for passengers.
Ziehs, or porous native clay-jars to hold cool drinking water, and
various other little accessories to lighten the hardships of the trip
would surely have been provided. Later on, the officials took care to
have ziehs and plenty of cool drinking water in the carriages and
trucks of all trains carrying troops, so that the men had at least
plenty to drink.
On our way up we passed Wauchope's brigade encamped at Es Selim and
Darmali. Colonel Macdonald's 1st and Colonel Maxwell's 2nd Khedivial
Brigades started to march from Berber to Dakhala about that time, the
end of July. Many of the British soldiers, so as not to sleep upon the
ground, had built for themselves benches of mud or sun-dried bricks,
whereon they spread their blankets. The plan secured some immunity
from such crawling things as scorpions and snakes. Sun-baked mud in
the Soudan is a hard and decently clean material for bench or bed. The
Theatres Royal, Darmali and Es Selim, were in full swing, though it
was very 'dog-days' weather. Officers liberally patronised the men's
entertainments and occasionally held jollifications of their own.
There were a good many who exercised the cheerful spirit of Mark
Tapley under the trials of the Soudan. Lively and original skits and
verses were given at these symposiums. Here are a few verses of a
topical song on the refractory blacks and fellaheen fallen under the
condemnation of either the civil or military law and forced to hard
labour. It was written and frequently sung by a clever young engineer
officer:--
We're convicts at work in the Noozle,
We carry great loads on our backs,
And often our warders bamboozle,
And sleep 'neath mountains of sacks.
Chorus: Ri-tooral il looral, &c.
(The Noozle is the commissariat depot.)
We convicts start work at day dawning,
Boilers we mount about noon,
Sleepers we load in the morning,
And rails by the light of the moon.
Our warders are blacks, who cry Masha! (march),
And strike us if we don't obey,
Or else he's a Hamla Ombashi,
Who allows us to fuddle all day.
Hamla Ombashi is a corporal of the transport service, and "fuddle" is
to sit down. It was the chorus with spoken words interlarded that
caught on astonishingly, and showed that the men's lungs were in
magnificent condition. Another howler, but by another author, was
"Roll on to Khartoum." Here is a specimen verse and the chorus:--
Come, forward march, and do your duty,
Though poor your grub, no rum, bad 'bacca,
Step out, for fighting and no booty,
To trace a free red line thro' Africa.
No barney, boys, give over mousing,
True Britons are ye from hill and fen,
Now rally lads, and drop all grousing,
And pull together like soldier-men.
Chorus.
Then roll on, boys, roll on to Khartoum,
March ye and fight by night or by day,
Hasten the hour of the Dervishes' doom,
Gordon avenge in old England's way.
"Grousing" is Tommy Atkins for grumbling, which is an Englishman's
birthright. As for no rum, subsequently the men were allowed two tots
a week; Wednesdays and Saturdays were, I think, the days of issue.
Less than half a gill was each man's share. I am inclined to believe
had there been a daily issue of the same quantity of rum it had been
better, and the young soldiers might have escaped with less fever.
Dakhala had undergone many changes since March. It was bigger in every
respect, but no better as a camping-ground. Truth to tell, it was so
bad as to be well-nigh intolerable. The correspondents' quarters were
exceptionally vile, the location being the worst possible within the
lines. We had no option, and so had to pitch our tents behind the
noozle in a ten-acre waste of dirtiest, lightest loam, which swished
around in clouds by day and night, making us grimy as coal-heavers,
powdering everything, even our food and drink, with gritty dust and
covering us in our blankets inches deep. The river breeze was barred
from us, and the green and fresher banks of the Atbara and the Nile,
beyond the fort, were for other than correspondents' camps. Many rows
of mud huts had been built in the interior. As for the sun-dried brick
parapets and ramparts of the fortifications, these were already
crumbling to ruin or being cast down for use in newer structures. The
lofty wooden lookout staging, called the Eiffel Tower, had been
removed, and its timbers converted to other purposes. On the
completion of the railway to Dakhala, Abadia had become but a
secondary workshop centre. Newer and larger shipbuilding yards and
engine works were erected by the Atbara. Under Lieutenant Bond, R.N.,
and Mr Haig gunboats, steamers, barges and sailing craft were put in
thorough order, native artisans toiling day and night. The clang of
hammermen, riveters, carpenters and caulkers resounded along the river
front. The Dakhala noozle was an immense depot, stuffed full of grain,
provisions, ammunition boxes, ropes, wires, iron, medical stores and
other material, like one of the great London docks. As usual the
indefatigable Greek trader had adventured upon the scene. North of the
fortified lines, with the help of the natives he had run up a mud
town. It consisted of a double row of one-storeyed houses, between
which ran a street of nearly 300 yards. The place, known as the
bazaar, was a hive of stores, wretched cafes, and the like. As the
Sirdar had had all the beer and liquor in the place seized and put
under seal before the advent of Mr T. Atkins, there was little to be
had in Dakhala bazaar besides a not too pure soda-water, coffee,
sardines, beans, maccaroni, oil, tobacco and matches.
[Illustration: STREET IN DAKHALA.]
For six weeks southerly winds blew almost daily. South of 17 degrees,
the northerly breeze does not commence to blow before the end of
August. It was warm, extremely warm, under the burning tropical sun.
The heat bore down like a load upon head and shoulders and enveloped
us like a blast from a roaring furnace. About noontide it was
ordinarily 120 degrees Fahr. in my tent. Still, I am sure it was by no
means so oppressive as at Korti in March 1885. The Atbara and the Nile
helped to temper the fiery glow that radiated from the desert rocks
and sands. At best, the heat is a sore trial, but to be borne with
more patience than the "devils" and sand storms that bother by night
as well as by day. Snow-drifts are mild visitations of Providence
compared with a dust storm or whirlwind. These latter would smother
you, if you would let them, quicker and less respectably than a shroud
of snow. Jack Frost bites mildly, preferring to do his serious work by
dulling the nerves; but the Dust Devil is a cruel tormentor from first
to last. You may bury your head in folds of cloth and mosquito
netting, and sweat and stifle in the attempt, but he snuffs you and
powders you all the same. He puffs his finest clouds in your face, and
round and round you till you find bedding and clothing are no more
protection against him than they are against the Roentgen ray. One
particular night he came in great strength to Dakhala, heaped waves of
sand over us, dug great hollows around our quarters, and completed his
diabolical games by completely overturning two of my colleagues'
tents. I saw my friends emerge from the ruins of canvas, bedding, and
boxes, wild, half-clad, terra-cotta figures, such as may have escaped
from the destruction of Pompeii. But the human mind is a curious
thing. It does not acknowledge defeat easily, and so a victim said to
me he had pulled his tent down to keep it from falling. The Dust Devil
had nothing to do with it.
Early in August the situation assumed a peculiar interest to us of the
fourth estate. We were told that the troops were shortly going forward
to rendezvous at Nasri Island, whereas it was a matter of notoriety
that Wad Habeshi, which was further south, had been selected as the
advanced camp for the army on leaving Dakhala. Of course, not one word
of the true state of matters were we permitted to wire home.
Detachments, true enough, had been sent ahead to "cut wood" and set up
a camp upon Nasri Island. But that was merely to have a secure
secondary depot and hospital station. It had been ascertained after
the occupation of Shendy that the dervishes were in no great strength
at Shabluka or the Sixth Cataract. They occasionally sent down about a
thousand Baggara horsemen to that place, and their riders scouted
around the bluff rocks and hills bordering the Nile on either side of
the "bab," or water-gateway and rapids of Shabluka. As a rule, only
about two hundred of them ever crossed to the east bank. The others
hung around on the west bank, and built low walls for riflemen and dug
a number of trenches and then returned to Omdurman. A few hundred only
remained to guard the forts and the narrow fairway. Much labour had
been expended and considerable rude skill shown by the enemy in
building bastions and other defensive works at various places on the
river,--particularly in the Shabluka gorge and before Omdurman. Why
the Khalifa committed the blunder of making no adequate preparation
for defending the pass at Shabluka it is difficult to understand. Only
one conclusion suggests itself. He was probably afraid to trust his
followers so far from his sight, lest the negroes should desert. We
continually heard from our own blacks that most of Abdullah's
_jehadieh_ Soudani riflemen would come over to us the first chance
they got. Major-Generals Hunter and Gatacre, having learned that the
dervish infantry had been withdrawn from Shabluka, scouted south up to
the cataract and selected Wad Habeshi as a suitable camp and
rendezvous. That village, or rather district, is on the west bank,
south of Nasri Island and but fifteen miles north of Shabluka.
A big zereba was made at Wad Habeshi and trenches were dug. The place,
in short, long before the British troops stirred south beyond Dakhala,
was turned into a fortified post and made the real rendezvous of the
Sirdar's army.
[Illustration: TROOPS GOING TO WAD HABESHI.]
On 2nd August, in the face of a strong south wind, the 1st and 2nd
Khedivial brigades, respectively Colonel Macdonald's and Colonel
Maxwell's, embarked in very close order on steamers and giassas for
Wad Habeshi. The distance was about 140 miles by water from Dakhala,
but it took the gunboats and their tows over three days to get there,
for the craft were deeply ladened with men and stores. The soupy
whirling Nile flood washed the decks of the steamers almost from stem
to stern. It was little short of the rarest good fortune there was no
accident by the way. Everybody turned out to see the brigades off.
Merrily stepped the black battalions, their women-folk raising the
usual shrill cry of jubilation, whilst the bands played the favourite
air, "O, dem Golden Slippers." Regimental bands do droll things
occasionally. I remember in the year of the Dongola Campaign and the
cholera visitation, 1896, a grim blunder made by a native battalion's
band. The serious surroundings of those days led me to say nothing of
the matter at that time. Military interments, in cholera cases, were
ordinarily made very early in the morning or late in the afternoon,
just before sunset. A popular native Egyptian officer fell a victim to
the epidemic one afternoon. The sun had but set when the funeral
party, headed by the full regimental band, were seen hastening towards
the cemetery, for there was no time to lose. The tune actually being
played was not the "Dead March in Saul" but "Up I came with my little
lot." When the gunboats started up the Nile for Wad Habeshi, towing
alongside barges and giassas, all the crafts crammed with men and
stores, more than one of the fellaheen battalions were regaled with
the full strains of "'E dunno were 'e are."
By the end of July the Egyptian cavalry--nine squadrons--under Colonel
Broadwood, with the camel corps under Major Tudway, the horse
artillery and one or two batteries, had been ferried across from
Dakhala to the west bank. On the 4th of August the whole of the
mounted force named, about 2000 strong, started to march along the
bank to Wad Habeshi. Going along the bank means, at high Nile, leading
the troops upon a course half to a full mile from the river so as to
avoid creeks and overflows and, at same time, secure the advantage of
moving upon the more open ground beyond the zone of cultivation, out
upon the edge of the bare desert. It was also early in August that the
last of the fourteen double-decked iron barges, designed for the
conveyance of troops, was finished at Dakhala. Except the surplus and
reserve stores everything was put to instant service. As good a march
in its way, if not better in some respects than that of the 5th
Egyptian battalion from Suakin to Berber, was the tramp of the 17th
Egyptian--also a fellaheen regiment--from Merawi to Dakhala. They
made a record rapid tramp, following the Nile, up to Dakhala.
At Dakhala I frequently saw and conversed with the Sirdar, Generals
Rundle and Gatacre, Colonels Wingate and Slatin Pasha. There seemed no
reason to doubt but that the Khalifa would remain at Omdurman and give
us a fight. Abdullah the Taaisha gave out as widely as he could that
he meant actual business and dying if necessary at the Mahdi's tomb.
His women-folk had not then been sent away, and that looked promising
for battle. We heard that he was building more stout walls and digging
numberless trenches for defence. Of ammunition for small arms and his
ordinary brass rifled guns we were told he had no lack. For the three
or four excellent batteries of Krupps he possessed he had but sixty
rounds per cannon--enough, with good common and shrapnel shell, had he
made right use of his means, to have made matters unpleasant for us
until our gunners and Maxims found the range. It was regarded as
doubtful whether he would be able to employ any of the machine guns in
the dervish armoury. Of all Gordon's "penny steamers" only one, it was
said, was serviceable, and she was kept under steam night and day at
Omdurman.
Though he kept a bold front, blustered, and promised his adherents no
end of good things, and told them that, as in 1884-85, it was God's
will to turn the English back at the eleventh hour, Khalifa Abdullah
was truly in a parlous state. With all the Sirdar's care, we could not
keep from the dervish leader the extent of our preparations or
forwardness for the advance. As usual, Sir Herbert Kitchener was well
ahead of the time planned for moving on. We learned that, bar
unforeseen accidents and delays, the whole of his army would be in
front of Omdurman in a little over one month from the 1st of August.
Two dates in September were given for the fall of that stronghold. It
turned out to be neither. Kordofan had become openly rebellious
against the Khalifa. A caravan of over 1140 people, with women,
children and cattle marching overland, had arrived from that remote
region at Korti in the Dongola province. The multitude, who were
accompanied by many influential sheikhs flying from Mahdist misrule,
sent a deputation to the Sirdar asking his assistance to take and hold
El Obeid. As if that were not enough in the way of shutting the door
behind the Khalifa, sheikhs came down from the Blue Nile provinces,
seeking protection. Help was given to them, and bodies of friendlies
were got together to seize Senaar and other important places. The Nile
was running very swift and full in August, the current moving at fully
six miles an hour past Dakhala. In July the Atbara, which had again
begun slowly to flow, suddenly rose, the muddy water roaring along in
a series of terraced wave-walls. Its 300-yards wide bed, where it
joined the Nile, was within a few minutes choked with the tawny flood
up to nearly the top of the 30-foot banks on either side. Bursting
into the Nile the sea of soup seemed to push its way in a well-defined
stream nearly across the 1200-yards broad bosom of the Father of
Waters.
The first half of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade arrived on
the 2nd of August at Dakhala, during a blustering dust-storm. For all
that, black and travel-stained, they were glad to detrain, and to plod
through the sand, and breast the laden atmosphere, in order to get
into camp hard by the Atbara. The following day the remainder of the
battalion marched in under somewhat pleasanter conditions. Everybody
turned out to cheer the smart, soldierlike detachments. On the 6th
inst. the first half of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards arrived,
and later on the remainder. The Sirdar and Generals Rundle and
Gatacre, and the staffs went to greet them. A finer and more stalwart
body of troops was never seen in the Soudan. Native opinion was more
than favourable respecting them, and I heard observations on all sides
that the Khalifa had no men he could set against them. The Sirdar and
General Gatacre also expressed themselves much pleased with the
appearance of the Grenadiers, who looked like seasoned soldiers and
came in without a sick man in their ranks.
CHAPTER V.
DAKHALA CAMP: GOSSIP AND DUTY.
Dirt is the essence of savagery, and there is a superfluity of both in
the Soudan. I have no desperate wish so to describe the vileness of
the surroundings of the correspondents' camp at Dakhala that even
casual thinkers will sniff at it. The place was bad enough in all
conscience, and, mayhap, therein I have said all that is necessary. As
for the worry of our lives, squatted as we were in the least agreeable
quarter of the big rectangular fort, long will the memory of those
days and nights burden our existence. What a time I had on those sand
and dust heaps, where every puff of wind and every footfall raised
clouds of pulverised cosmos. For two weeks, amid the wretched scene,
hideous by night as by day, I persisted in existing. It was a huge pen
with men, horses, camels, donkeys, dogs and poultry hobnobbing amid a
daily wreckage of old provision tins, garbage of soiled forage and
stable-sweepings and whatnot. All that, with a temperature of 116
degrees to 120 degrees Fahr. in the shade, wore the temper and added
amazingly to the consumption of wet things. At the Grenadier Guards'
mess one sultry evening they consumed twenty-eight dozen of sodas, and
it was not a record night. Without giving anybody's secret away, I may
say I know a gentleman who could polish off three dozen at a sitting,
and unblushingly call for more. These are details of more interest to
teetotalers than to the general public. Yet, not to let the subject
pass without a word of caution to afflicted future travellers in the
Soudan, the inordinate use of undiluted mineral waters of native
manufacture is most dangerous to health.
We correspondents had to wink both eyes in much of our telegraphic
news from the front, for military reasons. The press censor was
Colonel Wingate, chief of the Intelligence Department. In his absence,
Major-General Rundle, chief of staff, usually acted. Personally,
either gentleman was all that could be desired. Both were alike ready
and courteous in the discharge of their at all times rather onerous
duty, giving frequent audience to the numerous contingent of eager
newsmen, garrulous and prodigal with pencil and pen. Some of the
new-comers to the business felt sorely hit, because they were
precluded from writing at large upon all subjects connected with the
campaign. The excision of their copy grieved and hurt them as much as
if they had been subjected to a real surgical amputation. Yet those
two officers but obeyed orders, for after all, and under every
circumstance, the Sirdar, as I am well aware, was the real censor. It
is perhaps fairly open to argument whether the course adopted in
dealing with correspondents' copy was wise or necessary in a war
against an ignorant and savage foe. There was, at least, one official
blunder which gave occasion for much annoyance, and ought to have been
promptly remedied, or better still, never committed. It was expected
of Colonel Wingate, the censor, that amid multifarious important
responsibilities as chief of the Intelligence branch he should find
time daily to peruse and correct tens of thousands of words, often
crabbedly written, in press messages. With the approach of the day of
battle, his own department taxed more and more his entire attention,
and side by side the correspondents' telegrams grew in length and
importance. The task of proper censorship under such conditions was
impossible for any human being to discharge adequately. On that
account the public interest suffered, for press matters were often
neither promptly nor fully despatched. As a rule, the correspondents
were left in blissful ignorance of what had been cut out of their
copy, as well as of the exact nature of the residuum transmitted.
Besides these grievances there was one of favouritism alleged, but of
that there is always more or less in every phase of life and
association. All told, it may be thought that the correspondents'
complaints were of no very serious character. That depends on how they
are looked at. I have no taste for cavilling or grumbling over events
that are past. Surely, however, there is a middle way somewhere to be
found between the absolutism of a general in the field, who may gag
the correspondents or treat them as camp followers, and the clear
right of the British public under our free institutions to have news
dealing with the progress of their arms rapidly transmitted home. I
am well aware of the grave responsibilities that hedge a
commander-in-chief, and the cruel injury that an unrestrained
non-combatant may do him by recklessly writing on subjects calculated
to jeopardise the success of a campaign and hazard countless lives and
fortunes. The latter is an remote possibility. A commander-in-chief
has to consider that any enemy worth his salt is usually kept informed
by spies and deserters, and press-men who are known and cognisant of
their duty are no more likely to betray secrets to their country's
enemies than any officer or soldier in the Queen's service. And
nowadays the private correspondence from troops in the field cannot be
suppressed, and it is often published. Commanders of armies will
either have to accept the presence of recognised writers, over whom
they can exercise some control, or instead stand powerless before a
dangerous flood of random army letters poured into the public press.
The case can be met with judgment and care--plus penalties where
deserved. I am bringing no charges here, but discussing a vexed and
withal important question. I am glad to say that during the Omdurman
Campaign there was no attempt, within my knowledge, of muzzling the
press. This does not bear upon the Fashoda incident, but that came
later.
Nasri Island as a base of concentration was, as I have intimated, a
blind. Although we correspondents were not permitted to go up the
river, or indeed move beyond the Atbara, until the Sirdar and
headquarters had started, yet we kept ourselves fully informed of all
that was happening at the front. There had been one or two little
skirmishes between bands of mounted dervishes and our wood-cutting
parties of Khedivial infantry. In these encounters our men had
generally the best of the fighting, and the Baggara horsemen
invariably retreated with a few empty saddles. In July Major-Generals
Hunter and Gatacre had, during a small reconnaissance, proceeded as
far up as Shabluka Cataract or Rapid on one of the gunboats. The
enemy, it was seen, were in no great strength there, and the seven
well-planned, thick-walled mud forts blocking the passage were weakly
held. Those two officers landed with a small body of troops and
surveyed a suitable camping site, at what they called Wad Hamid, but
which, in reality, was north of that place and close to Wad Habeshi.
The object was to find a spot easily accessible by river and land, and
with not too much bush about. At that season, the Nile having in many
places overflowed its lower borders, marshes extended for miles along
the ordinarily solid river banks. Wad Habeshi was merely a native
wood-cutting station at first, but little by little troops appeared on
the scene, and a large entrenched camp, with lines extending for
several miles, was duly formed. At the end of July two steamers, which
had made the perilous voyage up the Nile from the province of Dongola,
came in and made fast alongside the mud bars at Dakhala.
It was still early in August when all the four battalions of
Major-General Hon. N. G. Lyttelton's Second British Brigade reached
Dakhala. They were quartered in a cool and cleanly camp by the Atbara,
to the south-east of the fortified lines. The 21st Lancers also
arrived at Dakhala in due course. Major Williams' Field Battery, the
32nd R.A. of 15-pounders; Major Elmslie's 37th R.A., with the new
50-pounder Howitzers firing Lyddite shells; and Lieut. Weymouth's two
40-pounder Armstrong guns, besides other cannon and Maxims, were
likewise on time. Very smartly the batteries and Maxims were stowed
aboard native craft, which were taken in tow by gunboats to Wad Hamid.
Detachments of gunners accompanied the pieces and carriages, but the
majority of the artillerymen were ferried to the west bank, whence
they marched overland to the new camp. It was at Wad Habeshi that the
army was first actually marshalled as a concrete force, and forthwith
took the field. Not a moment was lost by day or night in moving men
and supplies onward. The little paddle steamer captured from the
dervishes during the 1896 Dongola Expedition, which had been repaired
and sent to Dakhala, was continually carrying troops and stores from
the east to the west bank. As the Nile was running at the rate of six
miles an hour in its wide bed, the "El Tahara," as the craft was
called, had to make a big circuit to effect a passage. The "El Tahara"
was one of the boats General Gordon built at Khartoum but never lived
to launch. As she was a new craft, the Mahdi changed her name, calling
her "The Maid," instead of "Khartoum," as it had been intended to dub
her. She was an excellent vessel, with fine engines much too powerful
for her frame.
[Illustration: WOOD STATION (EN ROUTE TO OMDURMAN).]
Both Surgeon-General Taylor, on behalf of the British division, and
Surgeon-Colonel Gallwey, for the Egyptian troops, completed their
arrangements for succouring the sick and wounded upon the march from
Shabluka to the attack upon Omdurman. Adequate provision was made for
field hospitals, floating hospitals and relief stations, for medical
officers, and attendants, with cradlets and stretchers, to follow each
military unit into action. For the British infantry it meant,
substantially, that behind each battalion a medical officer and two
non-commissioned officers should march, accompanied by six camels
bearing cacolets, and men with nine stretchers. A somewhat modified
scheme was got out for the cavalry and artillery, as well as for the
other Khedivial troops. In the anticipated action before Omdurman,
temporary operating stations were to be set up, out of ordinary
rifle-range, and native craft, which had been fitted up with cots,
were to be brought as near the scene as practicable to receive the
wounded.
An attempt made to lay a cable from Dakhala to the west bank was not
over successful. It was found that the great sag, caused by the
current, carried the cable down stream, so the whole length ran out
before the opposite bank was reached. The steamer "Melik" was the
telegraph ship, and paid the cable out from a wooden reel placed on
her stern quarter. A few days after the failure she was employed
picking up the wire, most of which was recovered by Captain Manifold,
R.E., who was the director of military telegraphs in the last as in
the three previous expeditions against the dervishes. The recovered
line was relaid across the Atbara, which is barely a third of the
width of the Nile. From the south bank of the Atbara two land lines
pass up the east shore of the Nile. Upon a lofty corresponding pair of
trestles an overhead wire was also hung across the smaller river. A
few miles south of Dakhala a cable had been laid to an island and
thence to the west bank. From the latter point an ordinary land wire
ran along the desert to Metemmeh. Later on it was laid to Omdurman.
The line was put down step by step as the troops advanced. Thus an
alternative system of telegraphic communication with Khartoum was
early provided for.
It stirred the blood of everybody in our dull camp to see detachment
after detachment of the second British brigade detrain. Most of us
turned out and like schoolboys followed the drums and fifes as they
played the troops to their camping-ground. A half-battalion of the
Grenadier Guards, led by Colonel Villiers-Hatton, arrived at Dakhala
on the 6th of August. Hale and strong the big fellows looked in their
campaigning khaki. "First-class fighting material," as Arabs and
negroes, who are by no means poor judges, were openly heard to confess
in their interchange of confidences. There is always much camp chaff
and yarning amongst "Tommies"--and their officers, too, for that
matter--at the expense of England's picked battalions. "Have you seen
the 'Queen's Company,' my man," asked a subaltern of the Grenadiers
one day of a private in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Now the "Queen's
Company" are all over six feet in stature, and there was a friendly
rivalry in grenadiership between them and certain Fusilier regiments.
The question was asked when the troops were marching over undulating
but rather bare ground where the tufted grass was little over knee
high. It happened the officer had been detached on other duty, and was
anxious to rejoin his command. "I think, sir," said the Northumbrian,
saluting respectfully, "that they have got lost in the long grass."
The subaltern looked unutterable things, but the "Tommy" held a
stoical face and said not a word more till the officer went off to
hunt anew for his men. For all the chaff, every one was glad to see
the Guards, and to speak of them as the Queen's soldiers. Of the
second brigade General Gatacre said that a better body of troops could
not be wished for by any general.
I rode out to several of the brigade field-days, or rather, mornings,
for there was plenty of drilling and field exercises for Lyttelton's
men. The brigade was repeatedly practised in attack formation against
imaginary bodies of dervishes, as well as at assaulting supposed
works. On more than one of these occasions the gallant Colonel of the
Guards, not having his charger up at that date, led his Grenadiers
afoot, and once, at any rate, was mounted on donkey-back.
Particularism gets lost in the desert. In the manoeuvres the troops
were usually led in line, the flanks being supported by two or three
companies in quarter column, and the centre having in rear a few
sections of companies ready to fill gaps. Save for a little noise in
passing orders, the result of a fast-becoming obsolete school of
training, even captious criticism could find no actual fault with
their work. Advancing across wadies and scaling knolls upon the
desert, the troops were instructed to open fire with ball cartridge.
The range given was 500 yards, and the ammunition used was the
tip-filed Lee-Metford bullets. As at the Atbara, without halting, the
line moved slowly on, the front rank firing as at a battue, each man
independently. There were a few section volleys tried, the soldiers
pausing for an instant to deliver their fire. Once or twice also, the
rear rank was closed up, and joined in the fusilade. One effect was to
paralyse the deer and birds within range. I noticed that the tip-filed
bullets did not usually spread, and that their man-stopping quality
was something of a myth. Even the dum-dum does not invariably "set up"
on striking an object. For the Omdurman Campaign a new hollow-nosed
bullet was issued for the Lee-Metfords. So far as I was able to
judge, it generally spread on hitting, and made a deadly wound,
tearing away bone and flesh at the point of exit.
On the 12th of August the 21st Lancers, together with camel and mule
transport animals, were crossed to the west bank in readiness for
marching to Wad Hamid. Saturday, the 13th August, was a very busy day
at Dakhala. On that date the Sirdar went by steamer to the front,
direct to Wad Habeshi. It was given out he was merely going on a
flying visit for inspection. There was renewed active drilling of
troops. Eight steamers that came down were reloaded and sent back with
troops and stores in the course of twenty-four hours. General Gatacre
went to Darmali, and there assisted in the embarkation of his old
brigade, Major-General A. Wauchope's. The task was effected within the
course of twelve hours, the Camerons, Seaforths, Lincolns and
Warwicks, with their kits and supplies, being densely packed upon the
steamers "Zafir," "Nazir," "Fatah," and the barges and giassas, which
these craft towed. Had the Thames Conservancy writs run on the Nile
there would have been terrible fines exacted for unlawful
overcrowding. On the 14th August these stern-wheelers, heavily laden
with Wauchope's men, steamed at a fast rate past the Atbara camp, on
their way south. These craft, the first of which took part in the 1896
Dongola Expedition, turned out to be really the most useful and
dependable of the whole Nile flotilla. They steamed remarkably well,
towed splendidly, and were, besides, good fighting craft. The three
Admiralty-designed twin-screw steamers, "Sheikh" "Sultan" and "Melik,"
were not as fast as had been expected; they could not tow any
reasonably big load, and, though they were stuffed with many
novelties, few of the innovations were of the least practical value.
They needed all their engine power to steam and when under weigh had
none to spare for driving the circular saws to cut firewood for fuel,
or to start the dynamos to work the search lights with which they were
fitted. Major Collinson, commanding the 4th Khedivial Brigade, left
Atbara camp for the front with the 17th and 18th Battalions, or half
his force, the 1st and 5th Battalions having preceded him some time
previously.
CHAPTER VI.
MARCHING IN THE SOUDAN--FROM DAKHALA TO WAD HABESHI.
What a land the Soudan is! As a sorely-tried friend said to me, after
passing a succession of sleepless nights owing to the dust and rain
storms, and overburdened days because of the heat, "What do the
British want in this country? Is it the intention of the Government to
do away with capital punishment and send all felons here? I am not
surprised the camel has the hump. I would develop one here myself.
What an accursed country!" Yes, it is not an elysium; and when one
allows the dirt, heat, and discomfort to wither all power of
endurance, the Soudan becomes a horror and anathema, particularly in
the summer time. Now, the camel is to me the personification of animal
wretchedness, a fit creature for the wilderness. The Arabs have a
legend that the Archangel Michael, anxious to try his skill at
creative work, received permission to make an attempt, and the camel
was the issue of his bungling handiwork. Poor brute, his capacity for
enjoyment is, perhaps, the most restricted of the whole animal
kingdom. Ferocious of aspect, with a terrible voice, he is
nevertheless the most timid of beasts, and his fine air of haughty
superciliousness is, like the rest, but a sham. It might be fancied
that he is for ever nursing some secret grief, for he takes you
unawares by lying down and suddenly dying. Yet that is ordinarily but
his method of proclaiming an attack of indigestion.
[Illustration: LOADING UP--BREAKING CAMP.]
I struck my tent at Dakhala on the 15th of August, packed my gear, and
during the course of the day crossed over to the west bank with my
servants, horses, camels and other belongings. Having obtained
permission from headquarters to go up to the front, I decided to go by
land, marching with the cavalry and guns, for I was not free to travel
except in their company, at least until we reached Metemmeh but of
that anon. The column in question was under Colonel Martin of the 21st
Lancers, and comprised three squadrons of that regiment, or about 300
men mounted upon Arab horses; three batteries, the 32nd R.A., the 37th
R.A. (howitzers), and the Egyptian Horse Artillery; two Maxims with
division and transport trains, and a number of officers' led horses.
As I have already explained, the guns of the 32nd and 37th field
batteries, together with the limbers and ammunition, were sent on to
Wad Habeshi by water. There was much merrymaking as usual that
evening, for we were to start on the morrow. I squatted like many more
in the low rough scrub by the river's brink with my caravan around me.
During the evening I went out to dine with some officer friends. As I
had over a mile to walk to their pitch, the poor glare of the camp
fires made the darkness more inky, and I had sundry narrow escapes
from tumbling into ditches and water holes. Our bivouac was an
ill-omened beginning to the route march of the column under Colonel
Martin. One of the periodical summer gales came on, raising whirlwinds
of dust and sand. To complete our discomfiture a thunderstorm
followed, and there was a heavy sprinkling of rain for herbage, but
too much for men. Truly, misfortunes rarely befall singly. It was a
big Nile year, not a flood, but enough and to spare. A blessing, no
doubt, for Lower Egypt, but a calamity for us, for during the night
the river rose 2 feet, and overflowed its low, level banks. The water
overran part of the camping ground, compelling many a drenched soldier
to shift his quarters hurriedly. We got through the dark and troublous
night somehow, though keenly vexed by the muttered discontent of the
camels, and the persistent, blatant, variegated amorous braying of 500
donkeys. A cat upon the tiles, a Romeo, was to this as a tin whistle
to a trombone. Sleep was a nightmare. It was after six a.m. before the
head of the column moved out towards the desert track. The rear did
not get away before eight o'clock, much too late an hour for marching
in the Soudan. The weather was hot, the sun scorching despite a brisk
southerly breeze. Lieutenant H. M. Grenfell had charge of the fine
Cyprus mule train for carrying the British divisional baggage. There
was with the column a great following of native servants mounted upon
sturdy Soudan donkeys. The gawky camel shuffles along, a picture of
woe with a load of 2 cwt. to 4 cwt., whilst the little moke trips
smartly with almost an equal weight upon his back. Two Jaalin guides
were supposed to show us the shortest and best track. Major Mahan, of
the Egyptian Cavalry, had been told off to keep an eye on them and to
assist us generally during the march. Two squadrons of Lancers rode in
front, whilst the rest of the troopers were supposed to protect the
flanks and act as "whippers-in" to the column. Fortunately, there was
no enemy nearer than Kerreri or Omdurman, for our line was usually
stretched out for a great distance; two, three, and four miles often
intervened between the head and rear of the column.
After a few days of such marching as we had, straggling became the
normal condition of affairs, except so far as the leading squadrons of
Lancers were concerned. The last three days of the journey, in fact,
became a sort of "go-as-you-please" tramp. To inexperience and want of
wise forethought may be set down most of the difficulties, hardships,
and losses that befell that column on its 140-mile march south,
whereof later.
During the earlier portion of our first day's march (16th August) the
track lay along the edge of a pebbly desert, which left but a skirting
of one to three miles of loam and rank vegetation between its
measureless sterility and the tawny Nile waters. The small rounded
pebbles and the fine sand of the Nubian wilderness were surely
fashioned in some great lake or sea of a prehistoric past. Far as we
were from the dervishes, a childish terror of them was entertained by
the servants. At the last moment several domestics decamped, my cook
among them. I rode back three miles to catch the rascal. With unwonted
alacrity and prescience he had recrossed to the opposite bank before I
arrived at the place of bivouac, and, having no time, I had to retrace
my steps without his enforced attendance. It had been arranged that
the column should only go fifteen miles the first day. What with
winding and twisting to avoid flooded khors or shallow gulleys we
marched over twenty miles I fancy. At any rate, with no protracted
halting for meals or for baiting the animals, we trudged on throughout
the heat and worry of the day until sunset. It was putting both men
and animals to the severest possible strain, and few of the soldiers,
at least, had had any preliminary hardening, for they had been
travelling for days by boat and train and were out of condition. As a
rule, the Lancers trotted a few miles ahead, halted, dismounted, and
waited for the convoy to come up. Then they would ride on again, halt,
and so on, repeating the proceeding many times during each day's
march. From start to finish the column was ever a loosely-jointed
body. The pace was slow, little more than 2 1/4 miles an hour, though Sir
Herbert Stewart's Bayuda desert column managed to average upon a
longer and almost waterless route, from Korti to Metemmeh, 2 3/4 miles an
hour. In that campaign, however, most of our marching was done during
the cooler hours of very early morning and late eventide.
The head of the column turned in towards the river about three p.m. on
the 16th, at Makaberab, or, as the natives call it, Omdabiya--_i.e._,
the place of hyenas. For over a mile, men and animals had to make
their way through halfa-grass scrub, and then over bare alluvial land,
deeply sun-cracked and scored in all directions. The ground was
cris-crossed like a chessboard, the lines being a foot to two feet
apart, and four to six inches wide, and several feet in depth. There
were numberless spills through these pitfalls. One camel snapped his
leg, and many mules and horses were strained and lamed. It was indeed
fat land, and had formerly grown cotton. The cracks, as we found
later, were full of scorpions. During that night's bivouac, and in the
early morning, very many men and animals were stung by these venomous
pests. Only one soldier succumbed from a scorpion sting during the
campaign. The pain of the wound is as an intense burning or wounding,
and continues troublesome for hours. Ammonia was freely used by the
doctors when the stings were severe, but where whisky could be got,
that was preferred.
[Illustration: 21ST LANCERS--ADVANCE GUARD.]
We were early astir on the 17th inst., but it was not until daylight
or 5.30 a.m. that it was safe for the column to pick its way out of
the field of cracks. Why the spot was selected, except as an earthly
trial, I am unable to state, officially or otherwise. Hard by, on
either hand, there was solid and most passable ground for bivouacking.
We had a good many stragglers on the 16th inst., most of whom came
rather late tumbling and grumbling to supper and bed on the rough dank
ground. Others lost their way and wandered to the Nile, where they
were guided by natives, and later were lucky to get a lift to the
front upon gunboats. Two men of the 21st Lancers left upon the desert
with a sick comrade down with sunstroke, watched him die, and,
scraping a grave, buried him where he expired. Lieutenant Winston
Churchill, who was detained until late at Dakhala, in trying to follow
us, lost his way, and had to pass the night alone upon the desert. He
sat holding his horse till daybreak, and then, burning with thirst,
made his way to the Nile. Subsequently he hired a native guide and was
enabled to come up with the column on the afternoon of the 17th.
Spending the night alone upon the desert has been many times my lot in
Soudan campaigns.
During Wednesday's march, 17th August, we crossed the low shoulders of
many rocky ridges. They are called "jebels" (hills), but most of them,
including Jebel Egeda, which we passed, are little, if any, higher
than Primrose-Hill, London, though it is not a conical, but a long,
barn-roofed range. Near there I saw an enormous native cemetery. It
extended to perhaps fifty acres, the pebble-covered mounds over the
graves dotting the bare desert and the sides of the hills. I have an
impression that there are ancient funeral mounds near there, and that
the burying-place of Aliab is older than the invasion of the Arab
Jaalin. There were fragments of sculptured stones, granite, and blocks
of sandstone, and I noticed one broken memorial slab covered with
Greek characters. Farther on we had to turn aside to avoid wadies and
khors, up which the Nile had flowed. We were able to water the animals
at some of those places. The mules and horses buried their noses in
the flood and drank greedily, and the camels also had a fine,
long-necked thirst. We were ourselves too parched to care about the
impurities of the Nile, and soldiers and officers swallowed great
draughts of the soupy stuff.
Late in the afternoon of the 17th the column turned to the river to
bivouac at Kitaib, a twenty-two miles journey for the day. Too late it
was found that the ration depot there, from which the column was to
draw fresh supplies, was upon the farther side of a newly-made inlet.
The column had to repack, and turn west to round the creek. We reached
Kitaib No. 2 about six p.m. Part of the battery mules and transport,
however, got leave to remain at the first halting-place, as they stood
in no need of supplies, and I unpacked by myself, bivouacking under a
clump of tall mimosa trees hard by a vast deserted village and a long
grove of date palms. I believe that over a score of men lost the road
that night and ultimately wandered to the river and got to the front
by steamer. There were several cases of heat exhaustion and sunstroke,
but happily few of a serious nature. Two troopers, who floundered
through the marshy land, got taken aboard a gunboat when they were
utterly prostrate. Others, whose horses went lame or had to be killed,
were ordered down to the Nile to secure passage on as best they could.
In the darkness, as I was eating my evening meal by candle-light, two
Lancers shouted and rode up. They had the too common but true story to
tell of having missed the track. I found supper and breakfast for
them, and started them off with their troop at eight o'clock next
morning, the 18th August, for the column left Kitaib at a late hour.
My servants were glad of the soldiers' arrival, for they were terribly
afraid of robbers, the district being infested with marauding natives.
During the night several fugitives from Omdurman passed us going
north. Eighteen Shaggieh, who had escaped in a sail-boat, were but
four days out from Khartoum. They professed to be delighted to get
away. The Khalifa, they said, had ordered every sail-boat to go south
of Khartoum. Taking advantage of a thunderstorm, they headed down
stream and got away. According to them, the dervishes were killing all
the Jaalin who were suspected of trying to escape north, and the
Shaggieh and other northern tribesmen stood in little better plight.
All natives, other than blacks and Baggara, who could get away from
Omdurman were running off, as they believed the fall of the dervish
rule was assured. The Khalifa's son, Osman, whose title was Sheikh
Ed-Din, wanted to make terms. For months the youth had been in
disgrace, but his father had reinstated him in the position of
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Osman openly declared that fighting
against the Sirdar and the English was hopeless, and that it was wiser
to try and treat with us. Khalifa Abdullah and his brother Yacoub,
however, would not hear of treating for peace, urging that their own
people in that event would kill them. The only possible course was war
to the death. From an excellent source I learned that the dervishes
were well supplied with guns and ammunition, and that the Khalifa had
about five millions sterling of treasure laid by.
From Kitaib can be seen the dozen pyramids of Meroe, part of the
kingdom of the famous Queen of Sheba. To right and left upon the
opposite bank are catacombs, ruins of old temples, towns and forts of
a bygone civilisation. The country on both sides of the Nile in that
region has spacious alluvial belts, big as the Fayoum and as
susceptible to the arts of the cultivator. Such hills as there are
rise for the most part abruptly from flat land capable of limitless
irrigation. To anticipate somewhat: the region, south of Abu Hamed, up
to and even beyond Khartoum, has all the natural advantages of Lower
Egypt and something more. Berber is but 245 miles from Suakin. The
Nubian kingdom of antiquity, or that of the Queen of Sheba, must have
been of enormous extent, marvellous fertility and great richness.
Ethiopia may yet fulfil the prophecy. From Kitaib we marched about
eighteen miles to Maguia, passing through a forest of mimosa bush, the
track but rarely branching out amongst the halfa-grass upon the more
open country. About three p.m. the column turned in towards a side
stream and settled down near the village of Maguia. The wind rose as
usual at night, yet for all that the bivouac was fairly good, and
there was plenty of grazing. Next day, the 19th, we managed to make an
early start, getting away about 5.30 a.m. The distance to be traversed
was but fourteen or sixteen miles, and the column reached the
halting-place, Magawiya, about two p.m. We made our way over broken,
cracked ground to the river's edge, and there bivouacked under the
shade of a magnificent forest of stately date palms. The ripening
fruit had been extensively plucked by thieving natives, but there was
enough left for our men. It was a most picturesque scene for a camp,
but an unwholesome place for all that. It was given out that the
column was to rest a day at Magawiya, as the place was a wood and food
supply depot. During the course of the evening the sternwheeler
"Kaibur" came in, and a sick officer, Lieutenant Russell, and about a
score or more of men were sent back upon her to Dakhala, or Atbara
camp. It merits record that a party of Egyptian gunners carried upon a
native bed or angreeb a sick British artilleryman from Maguia to
Magawiya, from bivouac to bivouac. That was something like good
comradeship and _esprit de corps_.
[Illustration: HALT BY THE WAY.]
At nightfall the column was formed up so that the men slept upon the
ground within supporting distance of each other. Sentries and patrols
also were set, but the force was not one, I fancy, that would have
been able to offer a stubborn resistance to a surprise party of
dervishes. On Saturday, the 20th of August, as was anticipated, the
troops remained in camp and enjoyed much needed rest and opportunities
for washing. Several gunboats and steamers passed us during the day
going south, including one upon which were a number of correspondents
who were enjoying their _dolce far niente_ under awnings in a breezy
draught with inexhaustible supplies of filtered and mineral waters. We
saw the Grenadier Guards, the Lincolns, and other battalions pass us,
and steam slowly up stream towards Wady Hamed. On Sunday, the 21st, a
really early start for the first time was effected. We were to march
as far as Abu Kru that day, and encamp near the spot held by Stewart's
handful of men in 1885. Major Williams, R.A., went off with his
battery, the 32nd, at 3.30 a.m., and the 37th battery accompanied him.
Lieutenant H. Grenfell got away at four a.m., and the Lancers at 5.20
a.m. I pushed ahead of the troops in order to have time to revisit
some of the old ground I had been over with the Desert Column in
1884-85. It was odd, that though hundreds still survived who marched
with Sir Herbert Stewart, there were but fifteen persons in the whole
of the Sirdar's army who got through to Metemmeh. Of those still less
went in and left with the force that fought at Abu Klea and Abu Kru.
Of the very numerous body of correspondents there were but two. I
regretted that there were not several score or more of old officers
and men who went through the terrible Bayuda Desert campaign. Most of
them would have sacrificed much to have been in at the death of
Mahdism.
[Illustration: SLATIN PASHA (ON FOOT).]
Metemmeh had been made a slaughter-pen by the dervishes under Mahmoud.
It was truly an awful Golgotha. Dead animals lay about in all
directions in thousands, without and within the long, straggling,
deserted town. I rode up and looked at the remains of the little fort
and the loopholed walls on the south end of Metemmeh, close to which I
had ridden on 21st January 1885, and got hotly fired at for my pains.
Then I walked over the ruins of the Guards' triangular fort at Gubat.
The place was still capable of defence, and the trenches and
rifle-pits were much as we left them on 13th February with General
Buller. As for the graves, they were intact. The big earthwork we all
helped to raise near the river was covered with water, except a corner
of the western parapet. It was, however, partly thrown down, and the
ditch and slopes were overgrown with grass and bushes. Then I rode
away to Abu Kru battle-field and had a look at what remained of the
zereba, the little detached fort I had asked might be built, and the
graves of our dead. Some of these had been rifled. Heaps of dead
animal bones lay about, for we lost many camels that 19th January
1885. The enemy had gathered up and buried all their own dead. So
overgrown was the place that it was barely recognisable. I stood,
however, again where Stewart received his fatal wound, where Cameron,
of the _Standard_, and St Leger Herbert lay with soldier comrades,
and I wandered round to where Lord Charles Beresford worked the
Gardners against the dervishes outside Metemmeh, whilst I found the
range for him through my glasses, by watching the spatter of the
bullets upon the sand. That night my thoughts were full of bygone
scenes and doings in the most heroic campaign of modern history,
Stewart's magnificent ride from Korti to Metemmeh. There came back to
me the pain felt on the receipt of the evil news of Gordon's death,
brought to us by Stuart Wortley, and of the slaughter at Khartoum, all
of which might so easily have been averted but for----
On Monday, 22nd August, the batteries again got away before the
Lancers, starting at 3.30 and four a.m. The day's march was to Agaba,
about twenty-six miles, and the next day's about nineteen to Wad
Habeshi. Wady Hamed, which is nearer Jebel Atshan, was where one of
Gordon's steamers, the "Tal Howeiya," returning with Sir Charles
Wilson's party, was wrecked on 29th January 1885. Making a detour into
the desert on quitting Abu Kru, I left Colonel Martin's column, and
rode on with one native servant to Wady Hamed. As a matter of fact,
the camp was neither at Wad Habeshi nor Wady Hamed, but between the
two. The latter, however, was the official name. But that my man was
very apprehensive of meeting patrolling dervishes, I would have ridden
direct across country, starting from a point opposite Nasri Island,
where the depot of supplies was. On the pretext of watering the horses
he got me back to the river. The consequence was that I rode over
fifty miles on Monday. However, I managed to reach Wady Hamed before
sunset. On my way in I met the Sirdar, out, as usual, on an inspecting
tour. He was good enough to greet me kindly and direct me to the
correspondents' camp; those of my comrades of the Press who voyaged by
steamer had just arrived. The new camp was an immense place over three
miles long. It was a zerebaed enclosure lying along the margin of the
Nile in a field of halfa-grass broken up with clumps of palms and
mimosa. The country all around was as a vast prairie. Beyond the reach
of the Nile's overflow the sand and loam was bare of vegetation. The
river was studded with scores of verdant islands, and to the south we
could see the peaks and ridges of Shabluka, through which the Nile,
when in flood, surges like a mill race between narrow rocky barriers.
CHAPTER VII.
WITH THE ARMY IN THE FIELD--WAD HAMID TO EL HEJIR.
Wad Hamid was a camp of magnificent distances, restful to the eyes but
distressful to the feet. The soil was rich loam, and at no remote date
had been mostly under cultivation. There were several pretty clumps of
dhoum palms, and a few scraggy mimosa by the river's margin. Of
tree-shade for the troops there was practically none. Much of the
thorny bush had been cut to form a zereba. In fact, there were two
zerebas, the British division having a dividing line between their
quarters and those of the Khedivial force. There was also a semblance
of cleared roadways about the camp, but the ground was too spacious to
be easily made snug and tidy. Wad Hamid camp was quite five miles
nearer to Omdurman than Wad Habeshi. We were within the long stretch
known as the Shabluka or Sixth Cataract. For 15 miles or thereabouts
the Nile pours in deep, strong flood through a narrow valley, which in
places contracts to a gorge or canyon. The channel is studded with
islets and rocks, and at one point the river races through a
wedge-shaped cleft, apparently little more than 100 yards in width.
After my long ride in from Metemmeh I had to let my horse rest for two
days. So until my servants arrived with my spare led horses I had to
go about afoot. My camels and baggage were with the column. It was
more of a hardship tramping from place to place in the hot dusty camp
than roughing it upon the bare ground and living upon scratch and
scrappy meals of biscuit, "bully beef," and sardines, till my men came
in, put up my tent, and cooked my food. The British division was at
the south end of the long rectangular encampment. An interval of a
mile or more separated the divisional headquarters, whilst some of the
battalions had their lines 2 miles apart. Beyond all, another 2 miles
off, was the camel corps bivouacking by the rocks and foothills of the
Shabluka range. Their only shade from the noon-day glare was such as
they could get behind detached black granitic boulders and blocks. Wad
Hamid camp, viewed not too closely, was a pleasing picture set in a
background of dark hills with a bordering of wide tawny river flowing
in front. There were a good many tents in the British lines, but
relatively few in the Khedivial, for there fellaheen and Soudani had
sheltered themselves as usual under palm leaf and grass huts, or
beneath their brown soldier blankets. It was one of the clever
campaigning dodges recently taught the native soldiers by our
officers, to attach loops of twine or tape along the edges of their
spare blankets, so that these coverings could be quickly laced
together and spread over light bamboos or sticks, forming very
comfortable quarters. The Sirdar's headquarters tents were always
distinguishable by the big waving Egyptian flag, a crescent and star
on a red ground, and near it a bigger "drapeau rouge" flaunted the
talismanic lettering--"Intelligence Headquarters." Before
Major-General Gatacre's divisional headquarters flapped Britain's
emblem, a full-sized Union Jack. Major-General A. Hunter's tent had an
Egyptian flag dangling from a native spear, and the Brigade-Commanders
all had their respective colours planted before their quarters.
Colonel H. A. Macdonald, "Fighting Mac," had a characteristic brigade
banner, readily distinguishable. It was an ensign made up of four
squares or blocks of different colours, the colours of the respective
battalions of the command. To descend to particulars, besides the
Sirdar's and the Generals' flags, there were battalion and company
colours, and hospital, artillery, engineer, and various other flags.
In the Khedivial army the battalions were known by numerals from 1 to
18. The Arabic numeral of each native battalion was worn by the men on
their tall fezes and the khaki covers for the head-gear. It was found
necessary to devise a head-covering to shield the men from sunstroke.
That worn over the fez could be so adjusted as to afford shade for the
nape of the neck, and in front a scoop for the eyes, so that the
article became transmogrified into something between a kepi and a
helmet. The British "Tommies'" khaki helmet-covers were ornamented
with coloured cotton patches and regimental badges. Of course the
object of the patches was to enable officers and men to identify
easily their respective commands. The Rifles wore a square dark green
patch, which the Soudan sun bleached to a pea green. The Lancashire
Fusiliers wore a yellow square patch, and the Northumberland Fusiliers
a red diagonal band round the helmet. As for the Grenadier Guards
their insignia was a jaunty red and blue rosette. In Wauchope's
brigade the Lincolns sported a plain square white patch, the Warwicks
a red square, the Seaforths a white plume, nicknamed the "duck's
tuft," and the Camerons a "true blue" square patch.
The rapid thrusting forward of his whole army from Darmali and Dakhala
within a period of ten days was not the least astonishing and
brilliant strategical feat achieved by the Sirdar. In that space of
time troops, stores, and all the impedimenta for an army of 25,000 men
had been moved forward about 150 miles in an enemy's country. No doubt
he knew his foe; he certainly always had them under the closest
observation. For that reason the Sirdar was able to do things, and did
do them, that other Generals would have blundered over. The great
river before the camp, with its flotilla of gunboats, looking like
American river-steamers, the forest of masts, the lofty poles of the
lateen-rigged giassas, and the abundance of commodious barges gave a
broad hint how the transport of so many men and so much material had
been so smartly effected. Provisions, forage, ammunition, all on the
most liberal scale, he had got together. With the troops there were to
be carried supplies for fifteen days, and enough to last as long
again were to be accumulated upon Royan Island at the south end of the
Sixth Cataract. Placing the reserve supplies and base hospitals upon
islands meant that both would be safe from any raiding dervishes.
Beyond Wad Hamid everybody was to move in the lightest possible order.
Officers had to limit their baggage, so that it should not weigh more
than 60 lbs., and the men were to march in the lightest of kits. Camel
transport was cut down, and all animals not absolutely necessary were
to be left behind. For the conveyance of the baggage of each British
battalion 32 camels were allowed. All the men's heavy baggage,
overcoats, knapsacks, kit bags were sent on by river transport in
native craft. A blanket a-piece was what the men had, and that was
carried for them by the baggage camels. Quite enough for any European
to carry in the Soudan in August were his clothes, rifle,
accoutrements, and 100 rounds of ball cartridge. The native battalions
had assigned to each command 39 to 42 camels, as well as two giassas
or nuggars. These carried all the regimental belongings, and also most
of the men's things, for the Khedivial troops never marched with kits,
blankets, or any encumbrances upon them. Clad in comfortable knitted
jerseys, with breeches, putties, and good serviceable high-lows, the
men of the native regiments stride freely along, each bearing only
rifle, bayonet, and ammunition.
The massing of the forces at Wad Hamid was all but complete. Part of
the Rifle Brigade, detained on the river by storms and contrary head
winds, were the only absentees. On the opposite bank of the Nile had
been mustered the mixed body of friendly natives, who, accompanied and
supported by a gunboat, were to clear that side of the dervishes when
the Sirdar advanced. It was known that they would have to deal with,
probably, 1000 Mahdists under Zeki Osman. Our allies included Ababdeh,
Bisharin, Jaalin, Shaggieh, Shukrieh, Aburin, and other tribesmen led
nominally by Abdul Azim, the brave Ababdeh Sheikh. They were armed
with Remington rifles, but carried in addition their own swords and
spears. That they might be better led and prove to be of real value,
Major Stuart-Wortley, with Lieut. Charles Wood as his A.D.C., was sent
across to take the command. Wortley was received with every
demonstration of heartiness by the Sheikhs, who placed themselves and
their followers entirely under that able officer's orders. The
friendlies were most enthusiastic and eagerly asked to be led against
their dervish enemies. As these allies and the Sirdar's forces were to
march by the river's margin when possible, signalling would be nearly
always practicable between them. Telegraphic communication was opened
to Wad Hamid from Dakhala by Captain Manifold, R.E., and his sappers
almost as soon as the troops got into camp. With much hard work the
line had been put upon poles as far south as Nasri. When the army
subsequently advanced, as poles were not readily procurable the bare
iron telegraphic wire was laid upon the ground. In the crisp, hot
atmosphere of the Soudan, as there is little leakage, long distances
can be worked through an unprotected wire laid upon the desert. When
there were rain-storms of course telegraphic communication over such
lines became impossible.
On 23rd August, the day following my arrival at Wad Hamid, the Sirdar
held a great review of his army. At 6 o'clock in the morning the force
was paraded upon the open desert a mile and half inland from the Nile.
Reveille had been at an hour before sunrise. It was a pleasant
morning, for a fresh breeze was blowing, and the air was agreeably
cool. Several of the younger soldiers, however, succumbed to the
effects of the tropical sun during the few hours the troops were kept
employed, and they had to be carried back to camp. Although the
cavalry, with part of the artillery and Maxims, did not parade, there
was a big enough force upon the ground to make an imposing display.
The army was drawn up in line with a front over a mile in length.
Major-General Gatacre's division was upon the left, with the Grenadier
Guards forming his right. The Queen's soldiers were ranged in mass of
companies, column of fours right, whilst the native soldiery were
brigaded in line, Macdonald upon the extreme right, with Collinson's
brigade in reserve. The troops wheeled into column, deployed, changed
front, and engaged in firing exercise. As might have been expected,
there was more celerity and accuracy in changing formation displayed
by the British than in the native brigades. All the men were very keen
at their work, the expectation of being about to engage the enemy
doubtless lending special interest to their field-day. The camp, as
all camps ever were, was full of strange yarns--"shaves" about what
was going on at Omdurman, and the Khalifa's intentions. "Abdullah
would fight? No, he would run away; he was laying down mines in the
Nile to blow up our gunboats. A Tunisian had devised a torpedo, but as
it was being lowered from a dervish boat, the machine exploded, and
the engineer was hoisted with his own petard." Then there were stories
of extraordinary discoveries of precious minerals--gold mines by the
score. Two young officers, who wished some fun with a distinguished
military gentleman not unconnected with South Africa, persisted in
finding diamonds, pieces of rock-crystal, which, with an air of
mystery and importance, they submitted to his contemptuous inspection.
But a Major had the better of the expert on one occasion. He vowed he
had found diamonds, genuine diamonds, upon the open desert, as good as
any in South Africa or anywhere else; that he would be sworn to
forfeit L50 if the expert did not endorse his judgment. He had picked
up in one small spot no less than five. Burning with impatience to see
these precious jewels, the expert begged for just one peep at them.
The Major gratified him with some feigned reluctance; produced a "five
of diamonds," a castaway from some "Tommy's" pack of cards.
On the night of the 23rd of August Wad Hamid camp was swept by a
fierce storm of wind and rain. The temperature dropped 22 deg., and it
became positively chilly. As we were within the rainy belt, which
extends up to 17 deg. North, visitations of that sort during the summer
were to be expected. The troops bore the discomfort of cold and wet
clothes uncomplainingly, waiting for daybreak, and the tardy sun, to
get dry and warm. Bugle calls were a work of supererogation on the
morning of Wednesday, 24th August, everybody having been astir long
before reveille. It had been given out in general orders--one of those
gracious niceties of military courtesy never exhibited to the
correspondents in these later Soudan campaigns--that the Khedivial
troops were to proceed that day to the south of Shabluka Cataract. The
journey thither was to be made by the army in two stages, and the
British division was to follow on Thursday. Wad Bishari, about
half-way, was the first portion, and there the men were to bivouac one
night. Next day they were to complete the distance, making a detour to
avoid the rough hills of Shabluka, and going into a new camp laid out
at El Hejir. At 5 a.m. Macdonald's and Lewis's brigades paraded, and
under the command of Major-General Hunter, stepped off. So the end at
last began to loom in sight. Major-General Gatacre wished to go part
of the way the same day, in order to reduce the distance to be
marched, but the Sirdar put his veto thereon, observing that if the
"Tommies" could not do a little march of 13 miles, they could not walk
any distance. In the afternoon, at 4 o'clock, the remainder of the
Khedivial division--Maxwell's and Collinson's brigades--set out for
Wad Bishari to join their comrades. The men were in fine spirits as
they left, cheering and singing to the strains of their bands as they
gaily marched away. Some of the Egyptian soldiers were told off to
remain at the worst places of the Cataract to assist in towing the
native craft through the rapids.
The bugles called the men of Lyttelton's brigade to duty at 3 a.m. on
Thursday, the 25th of August. I cannot say that the call awoke them
from slumber, for all night there had been most disturbing noises
coming from the riverside, where native soldiers were reloading
giassas with stores going forward to Royan Island, for that new depot.
Royan occupies a position at the south gateway of Shabluka. It is a
finely conspicuous island, for upon the north end there is a lofty
barn-roofed jebel or hill. From the summit of Jebel Royan, at an
altitude of 600 feet, can be seen 40 miles away the outlines of
Omdurman and Khartoum--that is in the morning or evening, when the
distorting freaks of the mirage are not in evidence. The steamboat
skippers who had ten-horse power steam sirens, used them, after the
manner of their kind, and made night doubly hideous. At 3 a.m. began
our orchestra in the 2nd British brigade lines. All the camels, horses
and mules had to be watered and fed. The cheerful camels then had to
be loaded, that operation being carried on as usual with a terrible
grunting chorus, all the brutes taking part. The gunboats got off
before daylight. At five o'clock sharp, ere it was full daylight,
Lyttelton's men started, marching off in three parallel columns, each
battalion having its own advance guard. Four Maxims were with the
brigade. Behind the infantry was part of the Egyptian transport
train. The Sirdar inspected the column, and saw them started fairly on
the way to Wad Bishari. Major-General Gatacre, as usual, rode out with
them to the bivouac, and then galloped back to camp. The troops were
in great glee at setting off. The men marched briskly, their officers
tramping beside them. On the whole, the track was tolerable, mostly
compact sand and gravel. In some places, however, it was rough and
full of loose stones, and the sand lay deep and soft in several khors
and wadies that had to be crossed. The worst bit was in the second
day's march into El Hejir, where a detour had to be made to avoid the
Shabluka Hills.
At 5 in the afternoon of the 25th of August the 1st British brigade,
Major-General Wauchope's men, also left for El Hejir _via_ Bishari.
The "Rifles" or, rather, half the battalion, marched with them. Owing
to various causes, the "Rifles" were not all assembled with the
British division until the army reached El Hejir. In the end, the
second half of the battalion of that crack corps was transported by
water direct to El Hejir. They had quite a grievous mishap at Wad
Hamid. The upper part of a barge, on which many of the men's kits and
coats were stored, collapsed, and most of the articles fell into the
river and were lost. Wauchope's brigade marched forward in five
parallel columns, with intervals for deploying between each. The men
turned towards the west to get clear of the cultivable belt, for the
track afforded easier going along the margin of the desert. Behind the
brigade, protected by the usual rear-guard, were six Maxims, the
medica corps, a transport column, and a numerous following of native
servants riding on heavily laden donkeys. The battalion bands played
favourite regimental tunes as the men marched away. The pipers of the
Camerons gave the "Earl of Mansfield," whilst, with fifes and drums,
the Seaforths' pipers skirled "Black Donald of Balloch." News was
heliographed into Wad Hamid headquarters before we left that the
gunboats had seized Royan Island and established a post there, the
natives not disputing possession.
By the end of that week, 27th August, Wad Hamid camp was evacuated.
Nasri Island, however, was retained as a depot, and a small force was
left there. On Friday, the 26th of August, after a great fantasia and
war-dance, Stuart Wortley's column of armed friendlies moved south.
That evening they encountered and drove back a small body of dervish
horsemen. On our side of the Nile, part of the cavalry had been
scouting up to 10 miles south of El Hejir. Captain Haig, with a
squadron of Egyptian horse, fell in with a small body of Baggara under
Sheikh Yunis, and had a brush with them, one or two being wounded on
either side. The Sirdar and headquarters embarked at 9 a.m., 27th
August, on the gunboat "Fatah," to steam through Shabluka. I left Wad
Hamid the same day with one servant, rode through to El Hejir, 22
miles, and arrived in the afternoon, having ridden out of my way to
see the narrower gorges of the Cataract. The spaciousness of the
previous camp was conspicuously absent at El Hejir. In rather thick
bush and on partly overflowed alluvial ground, the lines were drawn
closely together. As the river kept rising, it soon became difficult,
without making a considerable detour, to pass from one part to another
of the ground by the water's margin.
CHAPTER VIII.
EL HEJIR TO UM TERIF--INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.
Your Arab is picturesque but poisonous: a fine specimen of a man,
though his usefulness in the economy of things is not apparent, at
least upon the surface. He dislikes steady, hard work, is a dreamer
with a deeply religious tinge, but all the same cruel and remorseless
in the pursuit of any object. We were well into the region that he had
ruled and ruined: a country capable of easily producing wealth,
charred and laid waste. The indigenous negro, on the other hand, is
not averse to toil,--nay, generally delights in it under normal
conditions,--is simple in his tastes, true in his conduct according to
his lights, and readily turned to better things. Your Arab seems to be
the reverse of all that, and yet he is a delightful person in his way,
though a belated savage. Burned villages, blackened hearths,
destruction on every hand, these were the telltale evidences before
our eyes of what the Khalifa and his hordes had achieved. Behind all
that there were the ruins of a great and long departed civilisation
that the early flood of Arab invasion doubtless did something to
destroy. Once again, as in the Atbara campaign, was the army closely
followed by bands of the faithful wives of the black soldiers. These
women as aforetime pitched their camp ordinarily half a mile or so in
rear of the men's, choosing broken ground and thick bush through which
they could escape if attacked by dervish raiders. In rude huts and
shelters built with their own hands amid the thorny mimosa and dhoum
palms, they washed, ground corn, made bread, cooked food, patched and
mended, and waited upon their uxorious soldier lords. "If handsome
were what handsome does," these negresses would have been beautiful,
but they were very far from it, poor creatures, except as I hope in
the eyes of their husbands. Talk of the cares of a young family, not
even that vexed their stout hearts and merry natures nor made them lag
in marching to war with their spouses. Alas! even the pains and toils
of maternity were fought down by young negro mothers, and I had my
attention called more than once to women with almost new-born babies
in their arms trudging along to keep up with the army. In such cases
the women and men generously did all in their power to lighten the
burden of the new mothers. Their household goods were borne upon other
already overloaded backs, and if a donkey was procurable the mother
and child were set to ride upon its back.
El Hejir camp was fenced about with a stout hedge of cut mimosa.
Besides that there were several smaller zerebas enclosing different
commands and several of the headquarters. There was plenty of halfa
grass for grazing and an abundance of mimosa for firewood for the
men's cooking pots and the steamers' boilers. Roads had been laid out,
and troughs of mud were built, at which the horses and camels were
watered, for the river's bank was unsafe. The site of the camp was not
unattractive. In front the great river was dotted with luxuriant
islands. On the left hand rose Jebel Royan, a Bass-rock-like hill
rising from Royan island around which the Nile flowed like a sea.
Again the Khedivial division had sheltered itself in straw huts,
tukals and under blanket shelters. The British soldier had a few tents
and much uncovered ground at his disposal for bivouac. It may be added
that the health and general spirits of the army were splendid.
At El Hejir the press correspondents, or at any rate those
representing the big dailies, except the _Times_, discovered they had
a grievance. The news agencies shared that feeling with their
colleagues. Even into war the affairs of business life obtrude. It is
not an unmixed evil to have a grievance; trouble and ridicule come of
having too many at the same time. I drafted a letter to Colonel
Wingate on the subject--a sort of "Round Robin" which the majority of
the correspondents signed, after which it was given to that gentleman,
who stood in a sort of god-fatherly position to us. A form of telegram
was also written and handed him for his vise, that it might be
forwarded, though in somewhat slightly altered phraseology, to each of
our journals. These papers explain themselves, and as they have never
seen the light and the incident is as yet one of the unrecorded events
of the campaign, I append them:--
"(CABLEGRAM) _Daily Telegraph_, LONDON.
"Matter-Notoriety, _Times_ has two correspondents here although
one, Howard, ostensibly represents _New York Herald_, but all his
messages are addressed _Times_, London, where read. I suggest your
getting _World_ or other American newspaper, which would give
advantage additional correspondent. Recollect all telegrams are
despatched in sections of 200 words. _Times_ therefore gets 400
words messages. Correspondents have lodged formal complaint.
"BURLEIGH.
"El Hejir."
The following is a copy of the letter handed in:--
"_28th August, 1898_,
"EL HEJIR CAMP.
"Sir,--It has been a matter of notoriety for some days that the
_London Times_ has two correspondents with the Sirdar's army,
Colonel F. Rhodes and the Hon. Hubert Howard. No doubt it may be
said that the latter represents the _New York Herald_ to which he
is nominally accredited. We are, however, well aware that his
dispatches are forwarded directly to the _Times_ Office where it
is not over-straining the question to say that they are there read
and used. Under the rules, all telegraphic messages must be
delivered in sections of 200 words, each correspondent being only
permitted to send in rotation that number of words and no more.
"The fact that the _Times_ has practically two representatives to
other newspapers' one gives them a manifestly unfair advantage.
"We need scarcely state, that in a campaign of this importance the
British public are most keenly interested. Our Editors would have
sent out, had not the military regulations precluded their doing
so, more than one representative from each newspaper or agency to
accompany the army. We respectfully submit that it is our duty to
claim equal facilities with the _Times_, and we ask you to take
such action as may be necessary, that our employers shall not be
placed at any disadvantage.--Yours respectfully,
"To Colonel Wingate,
"Chief Intelligence Department."
It was a fine way of spending the Sunday, but really we were all too
busy to bear the troops company at any of the services that day.
Colonel Wingate laid the matter before the Sirdar, who struck with the
justice of our plea summoned us all before him, when we stated our
case anew. He gave his decision, that the _Times_ correspondents twain
should only have the right to send 100 words each by telegram. We
disclaimed having any desire to curtail their letter-writing. That did
not matter. The affair I am glad to say was conducted throughout with
much good feeling, both Colonel Frank Rhodes and Mr Hubert Howard
acknowledging the right of our contention, and the affair gave rise to
no break in friendship. Colonel F. Rhodes acted very promptly and
generously, for before the Sirdar gave his decision he came to us and
offered his individual undertaking, that he would decline to send a
line by telegraph, leaving to Mr Howard the sole right to wire.
On Saturday the 27th August, whilst the deeply laden stern gunboat
"Zafir" with giassas in tow alongside was coming up the river, she
suddenly commenced to sink. The water rushed over her fore-deck, and
the officers, soldiers and crew were unable to beach her on the east
bank before she went down. Indeed there was a scurry to get into the
giassas and cut them loose lest they also should be lost. The vessel
went down about ten miles north of Shendy, subsiding in water 30 feet
deep, and only part of her funnel and upper structure remained
visible. With her there was temporarily lost over 70 tons of stores,
including much ammunition and many bales of clothing. She had been
chosen by Commander Keppel, R.N., as the flag-ship of the flotilla and
was rightly regarded by the "Admiral" as a fine vessel. It appeared
that through over-loading and rough weather water got into the hold,
and within two minutes, or before anything could be done to save her,
she sank. Captain Prince Christian Victor was aboard, he having been
assigned to duty with the "Admiral," for the craft carried a number of
soldiers as well as an ordinary crew. Both the Prince and Commander
Keppel had narrow escapes. Providentially, no lives were lost,
everybody being picked up by the giassas or managing to scramble
ashore. As soon as possible afterwards operations were commenced to
recover part of the cargo. The ship was secured from drifting by a
hawser being passed around her standing gear, and made fast to stout
trees ashore. Then some of the natives dived and several of the Maxims
and boxes of ammunition were salved. As for the craft there was
nothing to be done under the circumstances but to place a guard and
wait until the fall of the Nile enabled her to be unloaded and
refloated. Whilst Commander Keppel and his officers and crew were
making the best of it, the little ex-dervish steamer "El Tahara" hove
in sight with Major-General Rundle and several officers on board. She
lent all the assistance possible and then taking in tow the giassas
with Prince Christian Victor, Commander Keppel and the rest of the
shipwrecked crew, except the guard left behind, the "Tahara" with an
extra head of steam, churned up to El Hejir.
I think there had been an intention at headquarters to make a few
days' stay at El Hejir, and get the army well in hand before going
closer to the enemy. The gunboats began embarking all their ammunition
and commenced putting up their extra bullet proof protecting shields.
But the Nile persisted in rising and again flooding part of our camp,
interposing once more between the British and Egyptian lines a broad
arm of water. So again the army was ordered to "move on." Drills and
sundry other plans for exercises fell through and special precautions
were taken to guard camps and convoys from surprise as the army drew
nearer to Omdurman.
On Sunday, 28th August, at 3.40 a.m., the bugles were sounding in the
Egyptian portion of El Hejir camp. It was nearly an hour later before
reveille went in the British lines and the Lincolns made us think of
our sins and forswear all sleep by playing their awakening air, "Old
Man Barry." By 5 a.m., Major-General Hunter's division of four
brigades, with bands playing, were streaming out of their zereba
openings and taking the broad, well-worn tracks across the sand and
gravel ridges towards Um Terif. Macdonald's brigade was in the van,
and was followed in order by Lewis's, Maxwell's, and Collinson's, with
the baggage of each brigade behind the command. The guns were upon the
right of the division, the steamers covering the left. As for the
cavalry and camelry, spread over a wide front, their duty was to
search for the enemy and make sure the troops should have ample
warning of the approach of any dervishes. The two military attaches,
Major Calderari, Italian, and Captain Von Tiedmann, German, rode on
with the native troops. It was a cool morning and the battalions
headed by their bands playing all the while marched as if going to a
review. The Soudan soldiers' wives turned out again and mustered along
the line of route just beyond the camp confines. As the battalions
passed them, they shouted and gesticulated to their husbands, calling
on them to behave like men and not turn back in battle. Yet probably
over half of these same doughty black soldiers had been dervishes
before they came over to us. "Victory or death," was the cry of these
fiery Amazons to their warrior lovers. He would have been recreant
indeed or a marvellously brave man that would have returned to one of
them a confessed runaway from battle. It was not surprising that the
Sirdar did not object to their presence in the field, and occasionally
saw that they were helped with rations when food was not otherwise
procurable.
The desertion of El Hejir proceeded apace. In the afternoon of Sunday
at four o'clock, when the fierce heat of day had declined,
Major-General Gatacre's division in its turn marched off to Um Terif.
The brigades moved onward in parallel columns, with the artillery in
the interval and the 21st Lancers covering the front, flanks and rear
of the infantry. Tommy was jubilant and carolled, as he tramped,
topical songs and patriotic ditties. He heeded not the boisterous
south wind that ladened the atmosphere with dust till there was
darkness as of a city fog. Battle-day and settling of old scores was
near, and withal the end of the campaign, so he pounded along. It was
a rough tramp by the light of a growing moon. About 9 p.m. they
reached their camping and were assigned their usual position, facing
south, the side nearest the enemy. There was necessarily some delay as
the battalions were being told off to their assigned limits where each
had to pass the night ready to spring to arms. Detachments were
detailed to cut bush and form a zereba, whilst others attended to the
indispensable culinary department.
Each day our cavalry had seen slowly retiring before them a few of the
mounted dervish patrols. Nearing Um Terif, the enemy's scouts became
more numerous and inquisitive. Whilst a company of the Lancashire
Fusiliers stood on guard during the making of the zereba the infantry
had their first encounter with a dervish. From the desert there came a
rush and rattling over the gravel and loose stones, as from a
stampeded horse or mule. It was coming in their direction but neither
sentry nor main body thought of challenging. In an instant a mounted
Baggara dashed past the sentries and ran plump against a corner of the
company bowling over two or three men. Whether it was a deliberate
madcap charge, or the fellow was bolting from the other battalions and
lost his way is never likely to be known. Possibly he did not
anticipate finding British troops three-quarters of a mile from the
river. At any rate he dropped or threw his spear wildly, then,
wheeling about, galloped back into darkness almost before the fact
that he was an enemy had been realised. The men's rifles were
unloaded, so the dervish was not fired upon. And had they been
loaded, under the circumstances even then the officer, as he informed
me, would have hesitated to shoot, lest he should unnecessarily alarm
the whole camp. The spear left behind by the dervish horseman was one
of the lighter barbed-edge kind.
Um Terif camp was not a pleasant location. There was overflowed land
between the troops and the river, and the ground we had to bivouac
upon was rough. On Monday morning, the 29th August, before full dawn,
four squadrons of Egyptian horse and four companies of Tudway's Camel
Corps proceeded on a reconnaissance towards the Kerreri. The
twin-screw gunboat "Melik" also steamed up the river a few miles, but
neither quest resulted in adding much to the information already
possessed as to the Khalifa's intentions and exact whereabouts.
Whether or not we were to have our first battle at Kerreri none knew.
The fact was that during the night there had been a violent
thunderstorm accompanied by wind and rain. Daylight came with a
cessation of rain but the gale blew steadily from the south, raising
quite a sea on the Nile and a fog of sand and dust on land. It was
impossible to see or move any distance with security, and that was no
doubt the cause why the reconnaissances in both instances drew blank.
Formal councils of war were rare events during the campaign. A chat
with his officers, the eliciting of their opinions off-hand and a
watchful pair of eyes in every direction early and late, was enough
for the Sirdar. The delays caused by the storms however were becoming
embarrassing, and it was certain the men's health would suffer if
they were compelled to linger much longer _en route_. Still it was
well to be quite ready before pushing in to attack the Khalifa whose
large army, it was reported, would fight desperately. At a council of
war held on Monday, August 29th, at which all the Generals, including
the Brigadiers, were present, it was decided to remain until the next
day in Um Terif. The flotilla had been unable to concentrate in time,
the strong current and head wind making most of the vessels unduly
late in arriving from El Hejir. A piece of good news came to us from
the friendlies over the river. They were wont to march abreast with
us, moving up the east bank. We could usually see them across the half
mile or more of water that intervened, streaming along in their
conspicuous garments under the mimosa and palms, or treading through
the bush and long grass. On their way to their encampment opposite
they had fallen in with a small band of dervishes who were busily
looting a village. The natives of the place had offended the Khalifa
by absenting themselves from Omdurman, and so were being cruelly
maltreated. Major Stuart-Wortley's Arabs ran forward and opened a
sharp rifle fire upon the raiders, who replied with a few shots and
then bolted. A hot pursuit was instituted and five of the dervish
footmen were caught. The friendlies also had the luck to capture a
dervish sailing boat laden with grain. That evening at sunset, a few
Baggara horsemen and footmen were seen upon the nearest hills watching
the Sirdar's camp.
It was at Um Terif that the army, with all its equipment, was for the
first time got together within the confines of the same encampment.
From there also it set out next day in battle array, ready to
encounter the Khalifa's full strength. In the clear atmosphere of the
early morning and in the late afternoon when the bewildering mirage
and dancing haze had vanished, from any knoll could be seen the large
village of Kerreri. There the Mahdists had built a strong mud-walled
fort by the bank of the Nile. They had besides blocked the road with a
military camp big enough to shelter in huts and tukals several
thousand men. Information brought us by natives, spies and deserters,
was to the effect, that only a small body of dervishes had been left
at Kerreri under Emir Yunis for the purpose of observing the movements
of our army. Kerreri, which the Arabs pronounce with a prolonged Doric
or Northumbrian roll of the r's, as though there were at least a dozen
of them in the word, is upon the margin of a belt of rough gravel,
stone, and low detached hills that extend to the southward, to
Omdurman and beyond. The alluvial strip by the Nile, along which we
had marched so many days, gave place to ridges and hummocks of sand,
gravel, and rock.
So we waited impatiently at Um Terif for the flotilla with the fifteen
days' supplies on board. Meanwhile the axes of an army of soldier
wood-choppers were clanging upon the hard timber, which was being
felled for firewood. The ruin of agriculture had meant the growth of
bush, and there was an abundance of useful mimosa and sunt growing on
the alluvial lands by the river.
I ought to reproach myself, but I don't, for not having written of the
aggravating southern gale with its accompaniment of drifts of horrid
dust and sand as the "terrible khamseen" or sirocco. Travellers' tales
about having to bury yourself in the sand, or at least swathe head and
body in folds of cloth, in order to avoid being choked with grit, I
know. The real thing is bad enough without resorting to poetic or
journalistic licence, though some will do that anyhow. It is
sufficiently trying to grow hot and perspire so freely that the
driving dust, the scavenger drift of chaos and the ages, caught by the
moisture, courses down the features and trickles from the hands in so
many miniature turbid streamlets. During a dust-storm everybody has
the appearance of a toiling hodman. Feminine relations would have wept
had they seen and recognised their soldier lads in that sorry state.
Even the dashing officers and men of the Grenadier Guards ceased to be
objects of admiration, and the War Office would have howled with
exquisite torture at sight of their hair and clothes. Speak of
wrapping clothes around head or body to keep out the dust? It is sheer
nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch
a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is
nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the
swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, as quickly
and quietly as possible.
The fighting gunboats or armed flotilla consisted of the "Sultan,"
Lieutenant Cowan, R.N.; "Sheik," Lieutenant Sparks, R.N.; "Melik,"
Major Gordon, R.E.; "Fatah," Lieutenant Beatty, R.N.; "Nazir,"
Lieutenant Hon. Hood, R.N.; "El Hafir" ("El Teb"), Lieutenant Stavely,
R.N.; "Tamai," Lieutenant Talbot, R.N.; "Metemmeh," Lieutenant
Stevenson, R.E.; and "Abu Klea," Captain Newcombe, R.E. On the loss of
the "Zafir," Commander Keppel, R.N., transferred his flag to the
"Sultan," one of the new twin-screw gunboats.
CHAPTER IX.
ADVANCE TO KERRERI--SKIRMISHING WITH THE ENEMY.
"Death and his brother sleep" can only be staved off; they overcome in
the end. The tired soldiers dropped into profound slumber, although
the night of the 29th August at Um Terif was boisterous and the cruel
enemy near. It was one of the real surprises of the campaign, that the
Mahdists never really harassed us, or ventured to rush our lines under
cover of night, or in the fog of a dust storm. It has often been too
hastily assumed that the dervishes never attacked by night. By the
Nile and in the Eastern Soudan they repeatedly pushed attacks under
cover of darkness, or worried their opponents by persistent
sniping,--as for instance at Tamai, before Suakin and Abu Klea. Then
again, their final and successful assault upon Khartoum was delivered
at dawn. Hicks Pasha's force was hammered early and late. It is all
the more strange, therefore, that they left the Sirdar's army severely
alone, never practising their familiar harassing tactics and seeking
to secure an advantage. Numerous, swift of foot, with spears and
swords, the odds would have been much more in their favour had they
come down like wolves in the night. It is difficult to say exactly
what would have happened, and it is not pleasant to contemplate what
might have befallen. In such a conflict the Sirdar's losses would have
been great. Could it have been that the Khalifa believed some of the
stories set about that our army intended paying him a surprise visit
by night, as we did Mahmoud, and so he kept his men in camp quietly
waiting for us. The utmost precautions were taken by the Sirdar and
his generals to protect the lines. A strong zereba surrounded the
camp; sentries were doubled, and active patrols were on the alert all
night. The gale continued until after sunset, when heavy rain clouds
gathered, obscuring the moonlight. By and by there came on a violent
and protracted thunderstorm, accompanied by an almost continuous
deluge. There was nothing to be done but to lie fast wrapped in great
coat or blanket and await the passing of the hours, wet, chilled,
ruminating on all sorts of queer subjects. I managed to undo a corner
of my packed tent and under it obtained relative warmth, and dryness
in spots.
The persistence of that storm bred despair. It was nearly 8 a.m. on
Tuesday the 30th August, when, having drenched us all to the marrow,
the rain ceased. The sun, although two hours high, was battling with a
fine mist. It was in a perfect downpour of rain at four o'clock in the
morning, that reveille had been sounded. And it was in sludge and
slush camels and mules were fed and loaded, and horses baited and
saddled. By 5.20 a.m. the army was at length on the march out of
camp, our faces set towards a village called Merreh, best indicated
upon the maps as Seg or Sheikh el Taib, the latter being the name of a
low hill. The distance the force was expected to trudge was about
eight miles, but the overflowed land put two miles more on. When
daylight came we could see Abdul Azim's friendlies upon the opposite
side of the Nile. Led by Major Stuart-Wortley, with whom were
Lieutenant R. Wood and Captain Buckle, the camels of their column kept
pace with ours. Closely skirting the east bank that day, Abdul Azim's
warriors had their right supported by one of the gunboats.
With the Sirdar and staff riding at the head of the infantry columns,
the army advanced in the formation in which it had been determined to
attack the enemy at Kerreri. Once more our mounted troops pushed far
ahead, covering a wide stretch of country, the 21st Lancers under
Colonel Martin on the left, the Egyptian cavalry under Colonel
Broadwood and eight companies of the Camel Corps under Major Tudway on
the extreme right. The infantry presented a front of three brigades
marching in echelon. A battery of artillery was attached to each
infantry brigade except Collinson's brigade. Three battalions were
detached from the whole force to guard the baggage and transport which
followed in the rear. In front on the left, or nearest the Nile, was
Wauchope's brigade. The four British battalions thereof marched side
by side in column, the Lincolns upon the right, the Warwicks on the
left, with the Seaforths and Camerons between them. To the right of
Wauchope's brigade was Maxwell's, and next it Lewis's Khedivial
brigades. Behind each of the three leading brigades above named
(reading from left to right) were Lyttelton's, Collinson's, and
Macdonald's commands. Seen upon the desert the army had the appearance
of a huge square with front a mile broad. The day being cloudy, and
cooler than usual for the season, General Gatacre and his brigadiers
voted at a council to extend the march. That course was adopted, the
army keeping on, but with very many brief halts for the brigades to
regain their formation. By the extra tramp the troops were enabled to
pass beyond the broad margin of thick bush out upon the comparatively
open, pebbly, and rocky ground, which sloped to a narrow strip of
soft, wet loam fringing the river. About 1 p.m., when still fully one
mile north of the hill of Sheikh el Taib, the army halted and a camp
was made. Access to the Nile was very difficult, for overflowed, boggy
land interposed. Roads, however, were made with cut bush, and the
animals were led over them to be watered. During the army's march the
Lancers scoured the country far in front. They managed to get into
touch with some dervish patrols whilst scouting. The opposing troopers
looked at each other from relatively open ground, and standing
separated by only a few hundred yards. One Baggara horseman came
within 150 yards of our men. The Lancers, keen to engage with steel,
did not attempt to fire upon their intrusive foemen, but innocently
tried instead to bag them. Several times our troopers advanced to the
charge, but the enemy, when the Lancers sought to put hands upon them,
were gone. That day the Baggara horsemen were met with in far greater
numbers than previously. By instructions, the Lancers rushed one of
the many small villages, or groups of native mud-dwellings and beehive
straw huts that dotted the sparse bush-land a mile or more inland from
the river beyond Sheikh el Taib. Several of the enemy hastened away,
and in one of the huts a man in dervish dress was found awaiting the
troops. He turned out to be a secret agent of Colonel Wingate's
Intelligence Department. The spy in question was a Shaggieh, named
Eshanni, and but thirty hours out from Omdurman. I was led to
understand that he gave much valuable information as to the position
and strength of the Khalifa's force and the state of affairs in
Omdurman. We were told that the Khalifa meant to attack us at or near
Kerreri. There was an old-time prophecy of the Persian Sheikh
Morghani, whose tomb is near Kassala, that the English soldiers would
one day fight at Kerreri. Mahomed Achmed and Abdullah had further
added to the prediction that there they were to be attacked and
defeated by the dervishes under the Khalifa. Kerreri plain, therefore,
had become a sort of holy place of pilgrimage to the Mahdists. It was
called the "death place of all the infidels," and thither at least
once a year repaired the Khalifa and his following to look over the
coming battle-ground and render thanks in anticipation for the
wholesale slaughter of the unbelievers and the triumph of the true
Moslems.
All except those on duty were abed by last post on 30th August at
Sheikh el Taib camp. Lights were ordered out, and the camp for a time
relapsed into darkness and silence. Headquarters and all other tents
had been struck and packed. During the night there was shooting, the
crack of the musketry sounding relatively near, but occasioning little
annoyance. The bullets were badly aimed if directed against the
British quarters. Whether the firing was really meant for "sniping" by
the dervishes, or was only a note of warning to their friends of our
presence, was not easy to decide with any degree of certainty. There
was no big roll of wounded to test the enemy's intent by, and a later
incipient alarm caused in another part of the camp in the small hours
was possibly all a mistake. One thing the dervishes did do. After the
manner of hill-men, they lit beacon fires on the rocky ridges around
us to warn the Khalifa of our whereabouts.
[Illustration: ARTILLERY GOING TOWARDS OMDURMAN.]
That night the camp lines had been drawn still closer than ever, only
260 yards' front being given to each battalion. On the morning of 31st
the troops were early astir. By 5.30 a.m. the main body, following the
mounted troops, had faced to the right, and were marching to the
westward so as to clear the bush and get out upon the open desert
tracks leading to Omdurman. The ground the army passed over was
broken, and there was scrub with several small khors to cross, so the
force proceeded slowly and cautiously. Four of the gunboats steamed up
the river, keeping abreast of our widely spread out cavalry. About six
o'clock the Lancers had again ascended to the top of El Taib, a hill
from which at that hour I was enabled to get a view of the dervish
camp. It appeared to be about ten miles due south. The Mahdists were
disposed in three long dense lines, at almost right angle to the
river. They were partly hidden among the low scrub west of Kerreri
town or village, their right being quite 2000 yards from the Nile,
which showed they had a wholesome respect for the gunboats. Flags and
helios were speedily busy in the hands of our signalmen sending back
information to the Sirdar. Seeing groups of dervishes within range, as
well as bands of Baggara horsemen, the gunboats opened fire from their
15-pounders and Maxims shortly after 7 a.m., driving the enemy's
nearest patrols into hiding or out of range.
In one of the numberless villages passed, there were several mutilated
and charred human bodies, victims of dervish suspicion, greed and
cruelty. Pushing well ahead on our right the Khedivial mounted force
got a chance to send a few volleys into groups of Abd el Baki's
scouts. That Emir commanded the dervish outlying forces. It was still
quite early when after an easy journey of eight miles the infantry
turned aside towards the river. The army was halted at a place called
Sururab, a few miles north of Kerreri. Why it was called Sururab I
know not, nor have I found the name on any map; but that was the
official designation given to the place where the force subsequently
bivouacked. The only reasonable fault to be found with Sururab was
that the river banks were exceedingly difficult of access. Our camps
were getting from bad to worse. That day flocks of huge vultures were
to be seen circling overhead as the army advanced. It may have been
our approach that disturbed them from their carrion feasts in the
devastated villages and the abandoned dervish camps. Omdurman itself
must also have long been a choice feeding place for them.
Once more the Sirdar's army had to spend an uncomfortable night. The
few tents that had been carried so far afield belonged to
headquarters, generals, commanding officers, and correspondents. They
were more of a burden than a comfort, for all canvas had to be struck
by last post, and thereafter neither lights nor loud talking were
permitted. The native troops' low shelter tents made out of their
spare rough blankets were allowed to pass unchallenged. It was another
night to be remembered which the army passed at Sururab. Early in the
evening the clouds gathered, and a series of violent thunderstorms,
accompanied by heavy rain, continued almost without cessation through
the weary, lagging hours. Rolled in their blankets, the soldiers,
wetted through, lay upon the sodden ground. Such of us as could
crawled under sheets of canvas or waterproofs, but these afforded
little protection from the driving sheets of falling water. From
Sirdar to private none escaped a thorough wetting. The enemy, had he
chosen, might have advanced from Kerreri or Omdurman, and been upon us
ere an alarm could have been given. Shortly after sunset everybody had
to be within the zereba. All openings in the hedge were thereafter
stopped up, and no one was allowed outside before reveille. Officers
and men of Gatacre's division had as usual to sleep in their places
lying down in the ranks fully dressed, with their arms beside them,
ready to spring to attention. Sentinels and patrols, watchful and
observant, moved noiselessly about throughout the whole night. True,
there were outside a few of Slatin's most trusted native friends,
chiefly Jaalin, set to listen and raise an outcry if the Khalifa's
dervishes came down upon us under cover of the inky night. But I had
grave doubts whether these native allies would have been of any
service, as the likelihood was that they were huddled under some rock
or tree, shivering in their wraps and sheepskins. Had the Khalifa been
astute or a tactician he would have attacked our camp at Sururab that
night or early next morning. He must have succeeded, at any rate, in
getting close enough to us without our hearing a note of warning to
have placed his army upon a practical equality with ours in point of
value of rifle fire. The Remington at 300 yards is as good as the
Lee-Metford for killing or wounding. His superiority in numbers and
mobility would have been all in his favour. Luckily, it was not to be.
We were again allowed to sleep in such peace as the elements would
permit. The fact remains that the dervishes lost another of the
several excellent chances they had to do us signal hurt.
Reveille went at 3.45 a.m. on 1st September. Little need of it there
was, for the men were astir, trying to keep warm by stamping about. In
the driving rain and slush the army got ready to march forward. The
boats, as usual, were sent on with the surplus stores, whilst the men
carried one day's emergency rations in their haversacks, and two days'
ordinary food was taken upon the camels of each battalion. Once more
the brigades marched in echelon. Gatacre's division was leading as
before on the left, with Wauchope's brigade in front, and Lyttelton's
behind. Steadily, deliberately, the armed tide of men flowed over the
undulating plain, down into shallow khors, swelling through the scrub,
their serried ranks always plainly to be seen. I went forward again
with the cavalry, accompanying the 21st Lancers, who were upon the
left front. The Egyptian troopers and the camelry went to their usual
place upon the right. In a short time we found that the dervish
advanced camp west of Kerreri had been abandoned, the enemy having
fallen back and joined their main force under the Khalifa nearer
Omdurman. Word was sent back to the Sirdar that the track was clear of
the enemy, and so the skirmish before getting into camp, which all the
infantry expected with some degree of confidence and elation, did not
happen. By 10 a.m. the army had wheeled into the lines assigned it in
the southward portion of the scattered village of Kerreri. Once more
both wings rested upon the Nile, Gatacre's division in front (south),
Macdonald's brigade at the north, with Collinson's brigade within and
in reserve. The army encamped in an irregular triangular enclosure, on
one side being the river, our flanks and face being protected by the
gunboats. Our zereba outline was something like a broken-backed
pyramid.
Whilst the infantry were settling down in camp at Kerreri the cavalry
were pushing in the enemy's outposts. The British division cut and
built around their front a good stout thorny zereba. Lyttelton's
brigade and three batteries were placed nearest the river. Upon their
right was Wauchope's brigade, next to it was Maxwell's and Lewis's
brigades, and then to the right, Macdonald's crack command.
Collinson's brigade was held in reserve within the zereba; Colonels
Maxwell, Lewis and Macdonald had their front protected by a double
line of ordinary shelter-trenches dug in the loose sand and gravel.
The British Tommies had no trench. Going forward a mile or so to
rejoin the cavalry I climbed the rugged granitic slopes of Surgham
Hill. Like most of the "jebels," or mounts, in this region, compared
with the spacious wilderness about them they are but toy hills. Few
of them are much over 150 feet high, large as they often loom in the
deceiving light of the Soudan. Many are but 50 feet in height, and
there are regular, peaky, and prettily-shaped little mountain ranges,
the summits of which overtop the plain but five to ten yards. Such
hills children might build in play by the sea-shore. Surgham was quite
a big one, and the signallers soon took possession of it, flagging and
"helioing" back to camp. From its top I was enabled to see Omdurman,
with Khartoum in the distance. The Mahdi's white, cone-shaped tomb,
its dome girt with rings, and ornamented with brazen finials, globe
and crescent, shone not six miles away in the midst of miles of mud
and straw huts. Four arabesque finials rose, one from each corner of
the supporting wall. Before the town was a wall of white tents, the
original camping ground of the Khalifa's levies and reinforcements
drawn from distant garrisons. Midway to Omdurman, or within three
miles of where I stood, was the whole dervish army. Clearly they had
moved out from the city, and were organised as a force prepared for
instant battle. Their tents, camels, and impedimenta had been left
behind. Only a few low shelter-tents marked the lines in which the
Khalifa's army lay in the sparse bush. There were flags and banners by
hundreds, indicating the position of the leaders, chiefs and lesser
emirs. The Khalifa's great black banner, with its Arabic lettering
sewn in the same material, was displayed from a lofty bamboo pole,
planted in the dense central part of the force. To the left of it,
our right, were green and blue flags of the Shereef, or second
Khalifa, and Osman or Sheikh Ed Din, the Khalifa's son and
generalissimo of his army. Osman, we heard, had been reinstated in
parental favour, for he had fallen from grace for advising his father
to make peace with the Sirdar. As in a daisy-pied field, there were
dervish battle flags everywhere among the thick, swart lines that in
rows barred our way to Omdurman. The banners were in all colours and
shades, shapes, and sizes, but only the Khalifa's was black. The force
was apparently drawn up in five bodies or divisions. Abdullah's, in
the centre, must have numbered fully 10,000 men. Counting as carefully
as I could, I estimated the enemy who were to be seen as at least
numbering 30,000, and, perhaps, 35,000 men. Horsemen and camelmen
could be seen moving about their lines, and here and there others
riding, native fashion, on donkey-back. It seemed to be a
well-organised, intelligently-handled enemy we had in front.
Thereafter I rode onward and joined the farthest Lancers' outposts.
Small parties of dervishes, mostly Jaalin and blacks, who were caught
by the troopers, but had perhaps purposely given the Khalifa the slip,
were rounded up and sent back under escort as prisoners. Meanwhile
both the British and Khedivial mounted troops kept pushing on, driving
in the enemy's scouts. By noon there had been a series of attempts on
our side to charge, but the foemen always gave way. The Egyptian
cavalry under Colonel Broadwood and the camelry under Major Tudway,
making a wide detour, got close to the dervish left, and engaged the
enemy occasionally with rifles and Maxims. But the enemy's horse came
out in strength, supported by footmen, and threatened them, so
Broadwood's men had to fall back.
Four of the Sirdar's gunboats, which had meanwhile steamed ahead, were
briskly battering the Mahdist riverside forts. These works, like those
abandoned to us at Shabluka Cataract and Kerreri, were strong,
well-built earthen bastions, with flanking curtains. The central
semicircular portion was pierced with three embrasures for ordnance,
but so badly made as to admit of but a limited area of fire. Each
curtain was loopholed for musketry. There was a deep, wide trench
before the works, the parapet of which was about ten feet high, whilst
the walls of earth were about three yards in thickness. Despite the
skill shown in the construction and placing of the forts, the
gunboats, by bringing their Maxims and quick-firing guns to bear,
passed them unscathed. There were Krupp guns mounted in most of these
works, but not a steamer was hit. Another event of even greater
importance was meanwhile happening. From the first it had been planned
that the Lyddite guns and the 40-pounder Armstrong cannon should be
employed to batter down or breach the Khalifa's walls. The howitzers
were sent on by one of the gunboats to be landed on Tuti Island, which
is opposite Khartoum, for that purpose. But it was found the maps were
wrong, and a better position was selected within suitable range on the
solid land of the east bank. As for the 40-pounders it was found too
inconvenient to tranship such heavy ordnance.
The battery firing the 50-lb. Lyddite shells having found the range,
about 3000 yards, opened fire upon Omdurman. In quick succession rapid
splashes of lurid flame burst in the town, followed by great clouds of
dust and whirling stones. I watched them training the howitzers on the
great wall and the whited sepulchre of the false prophet. With the
third shot they struck the base and anon the top of the Mahdi's tomb,
smashing the structure, and bringing down the uppermost cap of it. The
nature of the bombardment and its success was galling to the dervish
force, as could be seen by the commotion it excited in the city and
their camp. Our cavalry on the left got to skirmishing again with the
enemy's outposts, on which we had closed to within 800 yards. Bodies
of their horsemen came out and drove our advanced scouts in. Then,
three squadrons of the Lancers were led forward by Colonel Martin, and
the enemy once more retired. This, seemingly, was too much for the
Khalifa, so his whole army was set in motion against us. They came on
deliberately, but smartly, their infantry trying to surround and cut
our troopers off. Dismounting part of his men, Colonel Martin
materially delayed the enemy's advance, for the dervishes sent out
lines of black riflemen to deal with the Lancers. A rattling skirmish
at 500 to 800 yards ranges was in a few minutes in full progress. News
was sent back to the Sirdar that the enemy's army were coming on _en
masse_, and step by step Colonel Martin's troops were retired towards
Mount Surgham and the river. Our retreat was pressed, and the regiment
had to mount and trot off behind the shelter of Surgham to avoid the
vigorous advance of the dervishes. Among our mounted troops there were
relatively few losses, although the enemy must have suffered
considerably. I noticed many of them being knocked over by the
Lancers' fire. Before 3 p.m. the Sirdar had all his infantry and guns
in position, awaiting the expected attack within his lines at Kerreri.
A few mud-huts on the south face of the zereba materially added to the
strength of the position. Our cavalry had all to continue retiring,
and ultimately the Lancers went down to the river so as to clear the
front of the army. Surgham Hill was occupied by a few of the
dervishes. From there they must have had an excellent view of our
camp; indeed, they had as good a panoramic peep at us as we had at
them. For some reason the Khalifa thought better of attacking us that
day, and so halted with his main body quite out of range. Towards
sunset his men gradually retired, going back to their former position.
They had left their camp-fires burning, and their chunks of meat and
cakes of rough grain cooking under the supervision of slaves and
followers when they came out against the Lancers. So it happened on
the eve of the coming battle both armies rested quietly in their
respective camps, eating, sleeping, and the devout praying, within a
five miles' march of each other. For supper our men had stringy bully
beef and biscuit or bread. The dervishes had hunks of freshly roasted
mutton, goat and cattle, done on the embers, and bannocks of dhura
meal. Extra precautions were again observed to secure the Sirdar's
army from any night attack.
CHAPTER X.
THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN--FIRST PHASE OF THE FIGHT.
In this and the succeeding chapter, the account given of the victory
of Omdurman is substantially the same as that which appeared in the
columns of various issues of the _Daily Telegraph_. The narrative,
although hastily prepared, gives an accurate description of the fight,
and copies of it not being now procurable, I venture to make use of
it, adding only here and there lines of new matter. I have reserved to
a later chapter the personal narratives of officers who were in the
action, and who have kindly supplied me with particulars of the part
borne by the gunboats, the cavalry, and Major Stuart-Wortley's
friendlies. With these I have coupled various details drawn from my
own observation. I found that through errors in transmission of the
messages, or mistakes in dealing with them, part of my copy had got
credited to other sources.
OMDURMAN, _2nd September 1898_.
The supreme and greatest victory ever achieved by British arms in the
Soudan has been won by the Sirdar's ever-victorious forces, after one
of the most picturesque battles of the century. At last! After fifteen
vexatious years spent in trying to get here, an Anglo-Egyptian army
has recovered Khartoum and occupied Omdurman. Gordon has been avenged
and justified. The dervishes have been overwhelmingly routed, Mahdism
has been "smashed," whilst the Khalifa's capital of Omdurman has been
stripped of its barbaric halo of sanctity and invulnerability.
Striking and dramatic as has been the manner in which the ending of
the curse of the Soudan has come about, the tale need lose none of its
force by being simply told. The grandeur of the plain story requires
no straining after catchwords. Of those who with Sir Herbert Stewart's
desert column toiled and fought to reach Metemmeh in January 1885,
less than a dozen are with the Sirdar's army, and of these but three,
including the writer, were correspondents. But to the narrative of the
battle which, at a stroke, has broken down the potent savage barriers
of blood and cruelty, and re-opened the heart of the great African
continent to the sweetening influences of civilised government.
Storm and cloud had passed. The moon rose early on the night of 1st
September. It shone brightly over and around our bivouac, south of
Kerreri village, or near Um Mutragan, according to the cartographers.
The north end of our camp lines approached the river just 500 yards
south of the ruined dervish redoubt of Kerreri. Sentinels were posted
along the irregular-shaped triangle, or, shall I call it, broken
semi-circle, within which the army lay. The sentries had a fair range
of view to their front. Men on the lookout also occupied the roofs of
the few native mud-huts at the south-western corner of the camp. Four
Jaalin scouts were sent forward to Surgham Hill to listen, and to
apprise the troops of any movement on the part of the Khalifa's army.
Other friendlies lay about outside, hearkening and watching, to warn
us of any attempt of the enemy to surprise the zereba. The sentries
were bid to shoot at any man rushing singly upon him, and to fire upon
large bodies advancing at the double. Men running in, however, in
pairs, were either
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