CHAPTER XXIX

THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)

VII. THE FIGHT TO REACH THE RIVER

"We had beat the foe at Abu Klea, and now had marched all night,

Parching with thirst, each longed to see the first faint streak of light,

For all expected with the dawn to see the river flow.

'Twas there all right, but in our path stood thousands of the foe;

We halted, and a barricade of biscuit boxes made,

And swift their deadly bullets flew round that frail barricade,

And many a gallant fellow dropped before the welcome cry,

'Form square' was heard, 'we must advance, and reach the Nile or die.'"

_Songs of the Camel Corps_ (Sergeant H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)

By the time the wounded were picked up, the dead counted, and their

weapons destroyed, and the square was ready to start, it was half-past

three in the afternoon. There was no food, and hardly any water. The

soldiers suffered dreadfully from thirst; their tongues were so swollen

as to cause intense pain, their lips black, their mouths covered with

white mucus. Several men fainted. Luckily I had put a skin of water

upon a camel just before the action, so that the men of the Naval

Brigade all had a drink, and there was a little water over for the

wounded. The sailors persisted in smoking; they said it did them good;

so I let them.

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The wells of Abu Klea lay some three miles ahead. The Cavalry, the

horses weak, emaciated, and tormented by thirst, were sent on to

reconnoitre. The square followed slowly. So short-handed was the

Naval Brigade that I had to clap on to the drag-ropes myself. We

hauled the gun through the sand and across nullahs and over rocks till

about 5.30 p.m., when we came to the wells, which were small pools in

the soil, and which, when they were emptied, slowly filled again. The

water was yellow and of the consistency of cream; but it was cool,

sweet, and delicious.

Three hundred volunteers from the Heavy Camel Regiment, the Guards'

Camel Regiment, and the Mounted Infantry left the wells soon after

sunset to march the six weary miles back again to fetch the camels and

commissariat. They marched and worked all night; yet their lot was

better than ours; for they got food and could keep warm. As for

ourselves, we lay down where we were, without food or blankets, and

suffered the coldest night in my remembrance. It is suggested to me by

a friend who has seen much active service in many wars, that, owing

probably to the exhaustion of the nerves, men are far more susceptible

to cold after a battle. He himself recalls the night after

Magersfontein as the coldest he ever experienced. At any rate, we were

cold to the marrow that night of 17th-18th January; cold and bruised

and very hungry, the most of us having had no food for twenty-four

hours. I must here record my admiration of the medical staff, who

worked hard all night, doing their utmost for the sick and wounded.

I sat on an ammunition box and shivered. The wound upon my finger,

where the Arab's spear had cut it, though slight, was

disproportionately painful. Lieutenant Douglas Dawson (of the

Coldstream Guards) came to me and asked me if I had any tobacco. I

told him that my tobacco, together with my field-glasses, had departed

into the desert with my steed County Waterford, which had run away.

Dawson had six cigarettes, of which he gave me three. I would

cheerfully have given a year's income for them, as {271} I told him.

We agreed that it was hard to have to die without knowing who had won

the Derby.

At about seven o'clock next morning (18th January) the convoy returned

with the rest of the camels and the commissariat. We had our first

meal for some thirty-six hours. Then we went to work to build a fort

in which to leave the wounded, and to prepare for the march to the

river, some 25 miles distant. A burying party went back to the field

of Abu Klea and interred our dead. Some prisoners captured by the

convoy on its way back to the camp, reported that Omdurman had fallen;

but the information was not made generally known. I did not hear it

until we reached Metemmeh.

Sir Herbert Stewart then determined to reach the Nile before next

morning. A small detachment of the Royal Sussex was left to guard the

wounded. The column marched about 3.30 p.m. It was a desperate

venture, for the men had had no sleep for two nights, had fought a

battle in between, had suffered agonies of thirst and the exhaustion of

hunger. But Sir Herbert Stewart had learned from the prisoners that

the enemy who had fought at Abu Klea were no more than the advanced

guard of the main body, which would probably come out from Metemmeh to

meet us, and that the fall of Omdurman had released a number of the

Mahdi's army; and the general wished to reach the river before fighting

again. He hoped to be upon the Nile before daylight. In any event,

the enterprise of the Desert Column was a forlorn hope; and by this

time we all knew it.

Cameron, war correspondent of _The Standard_, came to me with a very

grave face. He was not alarmed for his own safety, for he was a most

gallant man; but he feared for the Column.

"Lord Charles," he said, "have you any influence with General Stewart?

If so, for God's sake implore him not to go on without reinforcements.

I know these people and he does not."

{272}

The next time I saw poor Cameron was upon the following day, when he

was lying with a bullet-hole in his forehead, dead.

The Column was guided by Ali Loda, a friendly desert freebooter who had

been captured during the first march to Jakdul. He was accompanied by

Captain Verner and Colonel Barrow. Half the force marched on foot, in

case of attack; the mounted men each leading a camel. The commissariat

camels were tied in threes, nose to tail, the leading camel being

ridden by a native driver. Although both men and camels were tired

out, they went bravely along the track leading across a wide plain,

with grass and scrub in the distance. By the time it was dark, we had

come to the long savas grass, and the tracks, hitherto plain to see in

the brilliant starlight, became obscured. Then began the confusion.

By this time men and camels were utterly exhausted. There was no moon,

but no lights were allowed, and all orders were to be given in a

whisper. The camels, weary and famished, lagged and tumbled down;

their riders went to sleep and fell off; the leading camels fell

behind; and the rear camels, most of them riderless, straggled up to

the front. The formation was totally disordered. In the darkness the

confusion speedily became inextricable. When there was a halt to wait

for stragglers, the men lay down and dropped asleep. About this time

the Column blundered into a wood of acacia trees armed with long sharp

thorns. There ought to have been no such wood; indeed, Count Gleichen

avers that no one ever found it afterwards.

In this state of affairs, the Column lost in the dark in an unknown

country, utterly worn out, and inextricably tangled upon itself, I made

the Naval Brigade unspan and gave them tea. Then we struggled on, hour

after hour. As for silence, the noise might have been heard and

probably was heard at Metemmeh. An immense multitudinous murmur went

up from the unhappy mob of swearing men and roaring, squealing,

grumbling camels. A longer or more exhausting nightmare I never

suffered.

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Daylight came at last. It was about 6 o'clock on the morning of 19th

January. The least we had hoped was to have come within sight of the

Nile. But when the Column halted there was no Nile; only a long gravel

slope rising before us, set with scattered trees rising from the

eternal savas grass and low scrub. Captain Verner went ahead to

reconnoitre, and the Column toiled on up the ridge. Then, at last,

upon reaching the top at about 7 o'clock, we beheld the wide valley,

and the Nile flowing between broad belts of green, and on the left, the

roofs of a chain of villages, and the walled town of Metemmeh. Beyond,

upon the farther bank, clustered the huts of the village of Shendi.

But we had not yet come to the river. And moving out from Metemmeh

were crowds of the enemy, moving out to cut us off from the blessed

water. Once more, the whole air was throbbed with the boding war-drums.

Sir Herbert Stewart determined to give the men breakfast and then to

attack. As usual, a zeriba must first be constructed and the force put

in laager. The Column was halted upon the top of the rising ground, in

a space some 300 yards square, surrounded by a sea of thin scrub, in

which the enemy could find cover. A parapet, square in plan, and about

two feet six inches high, was constructed of saddles and biscuit boxes

and anything else which would serve the purpose. The camels were

pushed inside it, and knee-lashed, and in the centre was placed the

hospital. During the progress of the work the enemy, concealed in the

scrub, crept nearer and opened fire.

The men breakfasted in a rain of bullets. So wearied were they, that

some fell asleep over their food, bullets singing all about them. Many

of the men got no food at all. I saw two men shot while they slept.

One Dervish in particular sniped the Naval Brigade all breakfast-time.

I subsequently discovered him in the bush, lying dead, a bullet through

his head, in a litter of about 200 spent cartridges. One of my men was

shot, and a spoke was knocked out of the wheel of the Gardner gun. A

soldier was shot through {274} the stomach, and was carried screaming

to the doctors, who gave him laudanum.

The situation was far from encouraging. During the night--the third

without sleep--the men had marched for 14 hours, covering 19 miles, and

losing some hundred camels. We were still four miles from the river,

and between the river and our exhausted force were thousands of raging

Dervishes. We were caught in a trap.

Seventy yards from our left flank was a little hill. In order to

prevent its capture by the enemy, 30 Guardsmen were told off to occupy

it. Volunteers carried saddles and boxes across the bullet-swept space

and built a small breastwork with them. Several men were knocked over.

In the meantime a company was extended along the ridge some 50 yards

beyond the zeriba to check the enemy's fire; but they had nothing at

which to aim except the puffs of smoke rising above the scrub. The

Naval Brigade had no better luck with the Gardner gun, placed outside

the zeriba near the left angle of the front.

At some time between 9 and 10 o'clock Sir Herbert Stewart was hit in

the groin and severely wounded. The knowledge of this disaster was

concealed from the men as long as possible. Then followed a terrible

interval, which lasted for hours. Under that pitiless fire, exposed to

an invisible enemy, men and camels were being hit every minute. All

this time the heat was intense. There we lay in the blazing sun,

helpless, the rattle of rifles all around us, the thin high note of the

bullets singing overheard, or ending with a thud close at hand; men

crying out suddenly, or groaning; camels lying motionless and silent,

blood trickling from their wounds; and no one seemed to know what we

were going to do. Of all things, the most trying to a soldier is to

lie still under fire without being able to reply. It is true that

there was volley firing in reply to the enemy, but they were invisible.

The command had naturally devolved upon Colonel Sir Charles Wilson,

R.E., head of the Intelligence Department. {275} It was clear to me

that unless we marched against the enemy at once, we were done. I

dispatched a written message to Sir Charles Wilson. The messenger was

killed. I sent a second message by Sub-Lieutenant E. L. Munro, R.N.,

who was struck by a bullet which wounded him in seven places.

Shortly afterwards I received a message from Sir Charles Wilson

informing me that he was about to march against the enemy. I was

ordered to remain in command of the zeriba, with Colonel Barrow.

Before forming square, Sir Charles Wilson ordered the breastwork

surrounding the hospital and that defending the little knoll occupied

by the Guards in our rear, to be strengthened into redoubts, in case of

attack. The ammunition boxes must be shifted from the inside of the

main zeriba, and carried across and among the baggage and the packed

and helpless camels, a slow, laborious and dangerous business performed

under fire. Men and officers worked with a will; yet it was 2 o'clock

in the afternoon before they had done. Just then St. Leger Herbert,

private secretary to Sir Herbert Stewart and correspondent of _The

Morning Post_, was shot through the head.

The square was composed of half the Heavy Camel Regiment, Guards,

Mounted Infantry, Royal Sussex, Royal Engineers, and some dismounted

Hussars. Sir Charles Wilson placed it under the executive command of

Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. E. E. Boscawen. The square was formed up

in rear of the zeriba at 2.30 and marched at 3 o'clock. The men were

cool, alert, and perfectly determined. The British soldier had shut

his mouth. He was going to get to the river, enemy or no enemy, or

die. By this time the enemy were plainly visible in full force in

front, horse and foot gathering behind a line of green and white

banners. The moment the square moved beyond the redoubt, it received a

heavy fire. Several men were hit, and were carried back to the zeriba

by our men, while the square moved forward at quick march. It made a

zig-zag course in order to take {276} advantage of the clear patches of

ground among the scrub; lying down and firing, and again advancing.

The Naval Brigade mounted the Gardner gun in the angle of the redoubt,

and, together with the Royal Artillery and two of their screw-guns

under Captain Norton, maintained a steady fire at the three distinct

masses of the enemy. Two of these were hovering in front of the

advancing square, upon the landward slope of the hill rising between us

and the river; the third threatened the zeriba. In all of these we

dropped shells, paying particular attention to the body menacing the

zeriba. When the shells burst in their midst, the dervishes scattered

like a flock of starlings.

In the zeriba were the most of the Hussars, whose horses were worn out,

the Royal Artillery, half the Heavy Camel Regiment, half the Royal

Engineers, what was left of the Naval Brigade, and the wounded in the

hospital. Some 2000 camels were knee-lashed outside and all round the

larger zeriba, forming a valuable breastwork.

All we could do was to work our guns. As the square went on, the

enemy, moving in large masses, shifted their position, and as they

moved, we dropped shells among them. We judged their numbers to be

greater than at Abu Klea. Would the square of only 900 men ever get

through? If ever a little British army looked like walking to certain

death, it was that thin square of infantry.

Presently it disappeared from view. Soon afterwards we heard the

steady roll of volley firing, and we knew that the enemy were charging

the square. Then, silence. Whether the enemy had been driven back, or

the square annihilated, we did not know. What we did know was that if

the square had been defeated, the zeriba would very soon be attacked in

overwhelming force. But as the moments passed the strain of suspense

slackened; for, as the fire of the enemy directed upon the zeriba

diminished and soon ceased altogether, the presumption was that the

square had been victorious and had got through to the river.

What had happened was that the Arabs, charging downhill {277} at the

left front angle of the square, had been met by concentrated rifle

fire, our men aiming low at a range of 400 yards, steady as on parade.

Once more the British soldier proved that no troops in the world can

face his musketry. The front ranks of the charging thousands were

lying dead in heaps; the rear ranks fled over the hills; and the square

went on, unmolested, very slowly, because the men were tired out, and

so came to the river.

Count Gleichen, who marched with the square, recounting his experiences

(in his _With the Camel Corps up the Nile_), writes: "Soon in the

growing dusk a silver streak was visible here and there in amongst the

green belt, but it was still a couple of miles off.... Our pace could

not exceed a slow march. The sun went down, and the twilight became

almost darkness; ... a two-days-old crescent was shining in the sky,

and its feeble light guided us through the gravel hills right to the

brink of the Nile. The men were as wild with joy as their exhausted

condition would allow. The wounded were held up for one look at the

gleaming river, and then hurried to the banks. Still, perfect

discipline was observed. Not a man left his place in the ranks until

his company was marched up to take its fill.... A chain of sentries

was established on the slopes overlooking the square, and in two

minutes the force was fast asleep." Sir Charles Wilson (_From Korti to

Khartoum_) adds: "The men were so exhausted that when they came up from

their drink at the river they fell down like logs...."

They had been marching and fighting for four days and three nights

without sleep, and with very little food and water, and had lost a

tenth of their number. That night we in the zeriba also slept. I

remember very little about it, except that Lieutenant Charles

Crutchley, Adjutant of the Guards' Camel Regiment, woke me twice and

asked me for water. He made no complaint of any kind, and I did not

know that he had been hit early in the day and that he had a bullet in

his leg. General Crutchley, who was so kind as to {278} write to me in

reply to my request that he would tell me what he remembers of the

affair, says: "I remember lying on a stretcher that night, and people

knocking against my leg, and that my revolver was stolen, I believe by

one of the camel boys." Crutchley was carried down to the river by my

bluejackets next day, and was taken into hospital. As I remember the

occasion, he left the decision as to whether or not his leg should be

amputated, to me. At any rate, the surgeon had no doubt as to the

necessity of the operation, at which I was present. With his finger he

flicked out of the wound pieces of bone like splinters of bamboo. The

leg was buried, and was afterwards exhumed in order to extract the

bullet from it. I think I remember that Crutchley, seeing it being

carried across to the hospital, asked whose leg it was. He was carried

upon a litter back to Korti, and the shaking of that terrible march

made necessary a second operation, which was successful.

Sir Charles Wilson's force, having bivouacked that night beside the

Nile, were up at daybreak; took possession of the empty village of mud

huts, called Abu Kru, but always known as Gubat, which stood on the

gravel ridge sloping to the Nile, 780 yards from the river; and placed

the wounded in Gubat under a guard. The force then returned to our

zeriba.

When we saw that gallant little array come marching over the distant

hill-top, and through the scrub towards us, we cheered again and again.

Hearty were our greetings. Our comrades, who had marched without

breakfast, were speedily provided with a plentiful meal of bully-beef

and tea.

Then we all set to work to dismantle the zeriba, to collect the stores

of which it was constructed and to sort them out, to mend the broken

saddles, and load up the wretched camels, who had been knee-lashed and

unable to move for twenty-four hours. About a hundred camels were

dead, having been shot as they lay. As there were not enough camels to

carry all the stores, a part of these were {279} left under an

increased garrison inside the redoubt upon the knoll in rear of the

zeriba, Major T. Davison in command.

At midday we buried the dead, over whom I read the service, Sir Charles

Wilson being present as chief mourner.

The last of the wounded to be moved was Sir Herbert Stewart, so that he

should be spared as much discomfort as possible. He was doing fairly

well, and we then hoped that he would recover.

Before sunset we were all safely lodged in Gubat. The Desert Column

had reached the river at last. It was the 20th January; we had left

Korti on the 8th. In the course of that 176 miles we had gone through

perhaps as sharp a trial as British troops have endured.

At the fight of Abu Klea, nine officers and 65 non-commissioned

officers and men were killed, and nine officers and 85 non-commissioned

officers and men were wounded. On the 19th January, between the wells

of Abu Klea and the river, one officer and 22 non-commissioned officers

and men were killed, and eight officers and 90 non-commissioned

officers and men were wounded. The general, Sir Herbert Stewart, had

received a wound which was to prove mortal. All the officers of the

Naval Brigade, except Mr. James Webber, boatswain, and Sub-Lieutenant

Munro, who was wounded, and myself, had been killed. The losses were

roughly one-tenth of the total number of the Column. The camels which

survived had been on one-third rations and without water for a week.

They were hardly able to walk; ulcerating sores pitted their bodies;

their ribs actually came through their skin. Count Gleichen says that

his camel drank from the Nile for 14 minutes without stopping; and that

subsequently the poor beast's ribs took a fine polish from the rubbing

of the saddle. The horses of the Hussars had been 58 hours, and many

of them 72 hours, without water. I cannot mention the Hussars without

paying a tribute to the admirable scouting work they did under

Lieutenant-Colonel Barrow during the whole march, up to the time the

last zeriba was formed, when the gallant little horses were dead beat.

{280} The present field-marshal, Sir John French, did splendid service

with the Hussars throughout the campaign.

When we came into Gubat I was painfully, though not seriously, ill.

The galling of the makeshift saddle during my three days' ride across

the desert from Dal to Abu Fatmeh on my way to Korti, had developed

into a horrid carbuncle; and I was unable to walk without help.

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