Chapter 10

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.