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.
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.
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 manœuvres 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.
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.
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 2¼ 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, 2¾ 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.
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 depôt 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 depôt. 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.
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.
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 détour 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 depôt 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.