CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)

VI. THE FIGHT AT ABU KLEA

"England well may speak with wonder Of the small heroic band, Fearlessly, though parched and weary, Toiling 'cross the desert sand; How they met the foeman's onslaught, Firm, undaunted, with a cheer, Drove ten times or more their number, Down the vale of Abu Klea." _Songs of the Camel Corps_ (Serg. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)

Before the square was completely formed on the top of the knoll at the foot of which it had been halted when the thousands of Arabs sprang into view on the left front, the Arabs reappeared on the left rear, about 500 yards distant. They were formed into three phalanxes joined together, the points of the three wedges being headed by emirs or sheikhs, riding with banners. The horsemen came on at a hand-gallop, the masses of footmen keeping up with them. Our skirmishers were racing in for their lives. The last man was overtaken and speared.

At this moment the left rear angle of the square was still unformed. The camels were still struggling into it. Several camels, laden with wounded, had lain down at the foot of the slope and their drivers had fled into the square; and these animals were being dragged in by soldiers. The appalling danger of this open corner was instantly evident. I told the bugler to sound the halt, and having forced my way through the press to the front of the square, and reported the case to Sir Herbert Stewart, who said, "Quite right," I struggled back to the rear.

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Then I ordered the crew of the Gardner gun to run it outside the square to the left flank. At the same time, Colonel Burnaby wheeled Number 3 Company (4th and 5th Dragoon Guards) from the rear face to the left flank. Number 4 Company (Scots Greys and Royals) had already wheeled from the rear to the left flank, so that they were just behind me. Five or six paces outside the square we dropped the trail of the gun. So swiftly did these things happen that the leading ranks of the enemy were still 400 yards away.

They were tearing down upon us with a roar like the roar of the sea, an immense surging wave of white-slashed black forms brandishing bright spears and long flashing swords; and all were chanting, as they leaped and ran, the war-song of their faith, "_La ilaha ill' Allah Mohammedu rasul Allah_"; and the terrible rain of bullets poured into them by the Mounted Infantry and the Guards stayed them not. They wore the loose white robe of the Mahdi's uniform, looped over the left shoulder, and the straw skullcap. These things we heard and saw in a flash, as the formidable wave swept steadily nearer.

I laid the Gardner gun myself to make sure. As I fired, I saw the enemy mown down in rows, dropping like ninepins; but as the men killed were in rear of the front rank, after firing about forty rounds (eight turns of the lever), I lowered the elevation. I was putting in most effective work on the leading ranks and had fired about thirty rounds when the gun jammed. The extraction had pulled the head from a discharged cartridge, leaving the empty cylinder in the barrel. William Rhodes, chief boatswain's mate, and myself immediately set to work to unscrew the feed-plate in order to clear the barrel or to take out its lock. The next moment the enemy were on top of us. The feed-plate dropped on my head, knocking me under the gun and across its trail. Simultaneously a spear was thrust right through poor Rhodes, who was instantly killed at my side. Walter Miller the armourer was speared beside the gun at the same time. I was knocked off the trail of the gun {264} by a blow with the handle of an axe, the blade of which missed me. An Arab thrust at me with his spear, and I caught the blade, cutting my hand, and before he could recover his weapon a bullet dropped him. Struggling to my feet, I was carried bodily backwards by the tremendous impact of the rush, right back upon the front rank of the men of Number 4 Company, who stood like rocks.

I can compare the press to nothing but the crush of a theatre crowd alarmed by a cry of fire. Immediately facing me was an Arab holding a spear over his head, the staff of the weapon being jammed against his back by the pressure behind him. I could draw neither sword nor pistol. The front ranks of our men could not use rifle or bayonet for a few moments. But the pressure, forcing our men backwards up the hill, presently enabled the rear rank, now occupying a position of a few inches higher than the enemy, to fire over the heads of the front rank right into the mass of the Arabs. The bullets whizzed close by my head; and one passed through my helmet. The Arabs fell in heaps, whereupon our front rank, the pressure upon them relaxing, fired, and fought hand to hand with the bayonet, cursing as the rifles jammed and the shoddy bayonets twisted like tin.

The enemy wavered and broke away, some retreating, but the greater number turning to the rear face of the square, carrying some of the Naval Brigade with them. The rest of my men manned the gun and opened fire on the retreating enemy. But by the time the gun was in action the retreating dervishes had hidden themselves in a nullah, and the main body of the enemy had burst into the gap left by the camels in the rear face. My men joined in the furious hand-to-hand fighting all among the jam of men and camels. The ranks of the front face of the square had turned about face and were firing inwards. Poor Burnaby (who was "not in luck to-day") was thrown from his horse, and was killed by a sword cut in the neck as he lay on the ground.

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Fighting next to me in the square was "Bloody-minded Piggot"--Captain C. P. Piggot of the 21st Hussars--using a shot-gun charged with buck-shot. The Arabs were crawling and twisting under the camels and in and out the legs of the men, whom they tried to stab in the back, and Piggot was loading and firing, and the bluejackets kept calling to him, "Here's another joker, sir!" I saw the bald head of an Arab emerging from a pile of bodies, and as Piggot fired I saw the bald crown riddled like the rose of a watering-pot.

One mounted sheikh, at least, won right into the square, where the bodies of himself and his horse were found afterwards.

Numbers 4 and 5 Company, who had withstood the first rush until they were pressed back upon the mass of camels, were still fighting in front when they were attacked in rear. There, the left wing of the Heavy Camel Regiment--Scots Greys, Royals, and 5th Dragoon Guards--did desperate hand-to-hand fighting in the square, while the right wing and the Royal Sussex by their steady fire kept off the rest of the enemy. The stress endured only a few minutes. Every Arab inside the square was slain. The camels, which had made the weak corner of the square, afterwards saved it by presenting a solid, irremovable obstacle to the enemy.

As the enemy retired, Sir Herbert Stewart gave the word, and our men cheered again and again, and the retreating Arabs turned and shook their fists at us.

Their desperate courage was marvellous. I saw a boy of some twelve years of age, who had been shot through the stomach, walk slowly up through a storm of bullets and thrust his spear at one of our men. I saw several Arabs writhe from out a pile of dead and wounded, and charge some eighty yards under fire towards us, and one of them ran right up to the bayonets and flung himself upon them and was killed. I saw an Arab, who was wounded in the legs, sit up, and hurl his spear at a passing soldier. As the soldier stopped to load his rifle, the Arab tried to {266} reach another spear, and failing, caught up stones and cast them at his foe; and then, when the soldier presented his rifle and took a deliberate aim, the Arab sat perfectly still looking down the barrel, till the bullet killed him.

Surgeon-General Sir Arthur W. May tells me of an instance of the spirit of the men. A huge able seaman, nicknamed Jumbo, who was one of the gun's crew when it was run outside the square, was thrown upon his face by the charge; and apparently every Arab who went past or over him, had a dig at the prostrate seaman.

After the action, with the help of able seaman Laker, I carried him to the doctor. He was a mass of blood, which soaked my tunic. I tried to wash it afterwards with sand. He must have weighed about sixteen stone. Quite recently, at Stornoway, where he is chief petty officer of the Coast-guard, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Laker, and we recalled the salving of poor Jumbo.

He had seventeen wounds, spear-thrusts, and sword-cuts. Upon visiting him in the Field Hospital a few days later, Surgeon May, intending to console the patient, said:

"You will be able to be sent back with the next convoy of wounded, after all."

"Sent back?" returned Jumbo indignantly. "I haven't done with the beggars yet!"

He recovered, but not in time to gratify his ardour.

The square was moved some 50 yards from the field of battle and was formed anew. I went to try to find any wounded men of my Brigade. Having brought in two, I was starting for a third time, when someone shouted, "Look out, Charlie!" and I turned about to see an Arab charging at me with a spear. I ran to meet him, sword in hand, parried his spear, then held my sword rigid at arm's length. He ran right up the blade to the hilt, against which his body struck with so great force that he fell backward.

I picked up a man who was shot through the back, and put him upon a camel upon which was a wounded Arab. Presently I heard my man singing out; and I {267} found his thumb was being chewed off by the Arab, whom I hauled off the camel and of whom I disposed in another way.

The bodies of most of my men who were killed were found some 25 yards from the place at which we had worked the gun. Here were the bodies of my poor comrades, Lieutenants Alfred Pigott and R. E. de Lisle. Pigott had been promoted to commander, but he never knew it. De Lisle had his whole face cut clean off. Captain C. P. Piggot (not to be confused with the naval officer, Commander Alfred Pigott), who fought like a Paladin in the square, and who knew not fear, died some years afterwards in England. (I took him on my coach to Lord's; he was so weak that he could not get upon it without the help of a footman, and he looked dreadfully ill. He told me that the doctor had given him three weeks to live; but he was dead in three days.)

Eight of the Naval Brigade were killed and seven were wounded, out of 40 who went into action. Every man of the Brigade handling the gun outside the square was killed, excepting myself.

I observed that the rows of bullets from the Gardner gun, which was rifle calibre .45-inch, with five barrels, had cut off heads and tops of heads as though sliced horizontally with a knife.

The official account gives the loss of the enemy at 1100 in the vicinity of the square.

Nearly half the British rifles jammed, owing to the use of leaf cartridges. The Remington rifles used by the Mahdi's soldiers had solid drawn cartridges which did not jam. During the action of Abu Klea the officers were almost entirely employed in clearing jammed rifles passed back to them by the men. The British bayonets and cutlasses bent and twisted, the result of a combination of knavery and laziness on the part of those who were trusted to supply the soldier with weapons upon which his life depends. The bayonets were blunt, because no one had thought of sharpening them. The spears of the Arabs were sharp like {268} razors. The cutlasses of the Naval Brigade were specially sharpened.

I noticed that when a soldier was killed, a bluejacket always endeavoured to secure his bayonet; and that when a sailor was killed, a soldier always tried to take his hat, preferring it to the Army helmet.

The official report of Sir Charles Wilson states the total number of the enemy to have been from 9000 to 11,000, consisting of men from Berber, Metemmeh, Kordofan, and 1000 men of the Mahdi's army. Of the total number, it was estimated that 5000 or 6000 attacked. The British numbered something over 1200 men; but, these being in square, the weight of the attack fell upon no more than about 300 men. There were 342 men of the Royal Artillery on the front face of the square; 235 men on the left flank, reinforced when the charge came by some of the Naval Brigade and a company from the rear face; 300 men and the Naval Brigade, between 40 and 50 strong, on the rear face; and 307 men on the right flank. The centre was a solid mass of camels. This thin framework of men, forced back upon the camels, resisted the tremendous impact of thousands of frenzied fanatics who knew not fear, and whom nothing stopped but death.

I cannot better describe the result than by quoting the words of Colonel the Hon. Reginald Talbot, 1st Life Guards, who commanded the Heavy Camel Regiment at Abu Klea (_Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1886):

"It was an Inkerman on a small scale--a soldiers' battle; strength, determination, steadiness, and unflinching courage alone could have stemmed the onslaught."

It was a soldiers' battle, because the attack was sudden; it came before the square was formed; and in the stress and tumult orders were useless.

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