General Gatacre Part 19

[Sidenote: Farewell]

Though telegrams conveying the welcome news had reached him a fortnight earlier, it was not till the end of June that Bombay learnt that its General Officer Commanding had been appointed to the command of a Brigade at Aldershot, and would shortly be leaving the scene of his labours. The city had now been p.r.o.nounced free from plague, hospitals were being closed on all sides, and employes of all ranks were daily dismissed. The Gatacre Committee had succeeded in stamping out the plague, and a chorus of grat.i.tude arose towards the man to whose courage and determination the success of the attempt was mainly attributed. Every community wished to present him with a token of its recognition, while all combined to entertain him "on a very grand scale."[10] Leave was obtained from the Government of India to accept five testimonials, which, being cased in the silver cylinders familiar to the Anglo-Indian, are as beautiful as their contents are unique.

Two of these offerings were a source of special pride and pleasure to their recipient. The casket {183} presented by "The Citizens of Bombay" contains a scroll of parchment on which sixty signatures testify that all the representative men in the city, Christian, Mussulman, and Hindu, all merged their differences in their unanimous appreciation of the brilliant qualities and self-sacrificing devotion of the Chairman of the Bombay Plague Committee. A silver box presented by the seven officers who had so loyally served on the Committee throughout those four arduous months was also specially prized. But I am very sure that he would wish me not to omit a record of the offering of the Plague Staff, native clerks, engineers, and workmen of all cla.s.ses; or of the touching farewell accorded him by the Sisters of the Cross at the Bandora Convent.

[10] See _Bombay Gazette_, July 6, 1897, and _Times of India_, July 22, 1807.

On July 2, one week before he sailed for home, he writes:

"I am looking forward to getting back to life again; I have been buried in a plague-pit for the last few months."

{184}

CHAPTER XII

1897-1898

FROM ALDERSHOT TO BERBER

[Sidenote: 1897]

When Gatacre reached Aldershot on Sunday, August 11, 1897, he found that his Brigade was already engaged in manoeuvres. The training was so arranged that year that though a continuous scheme was carried on from day to day, the troops returned each evening to their barracks.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, who commanded the Aldershot District, sent a kind message of welcome to the new Brigadier, saying that he would not expect to see him out for the first few days, but hoped that he would soon be able to take up the command of his troops in the field.

[Sidenote: Route-marching]

As the field-days all took place within easy reach of Aldershot, many ladies used at first to ride out on their bicycles to see what was going on. This practice was, however, suddenly dropped after we learnt that two of our friends had been taken prisoners one day. They were detained, and entertained, at the Headquarter Camp during the day's operations, and were not liberated until the troops were on the march {185} homewards. It was thought that ladies thus prowling round until they got in touch with their husbands' corps would quite innocently carry information that would materially affect the execution of the military scheme.

It was a great pleasure to Gatacre to find himself in England again.

His sociable and friendly instincts all came into play. I remember his getting hold of a list of the cadets at Sandhurst, and seeking out the sons of his friends, and asking them over to such events as would interest them. He set about getting horses, and looked forward to a hunting season at home. The Brigade route-marching was positively an enjoyment to him; he took so much interest in his new regiments that he would get up early on the route-marching days and be on the barrack square to see the first battalion march out, and sit there on his horse until the last man of the last battalion had pa.s.sed him. Then cantering on, he would work his way up to the head of the column and see the first and the last company march in. He found the most genuine and unaffected pleasure in every phase of his work. The conditions under which it was carried out were much easier and less exacting than they had been in India. Indeed, the light work that goes on after October 1 was so much of a holiday to him that all thought of long leave was postponed till later in the season.

At Christmas he took ten days' leave, which we spent at my father's house in Suss.e.x. The distance being only twenty-four miles, and the {186} weather being open, we did the journey on horseback, and had a few days' hunting with Lord Leconfield's hounds during our visit. On Monday, January 3, we rode back, and, arriving late, had just sat down to luncheon when the A.D.C. suddenly turned up, bringing a telegram in his hand.

[Sidenote: 1898]

"This seemed so important, sir," he said, "that I thought I ought to bring it myself."

The telegram was from the War Office in London to the Aldershot Divisional Office, and ran:

"Please send General Gatacre and Major Snow, Brigade-Major, here as soon as possible; may be wanted for foreign service."

There had been a paragraph in the morning papers announcing the movement of troops from Cairo up the Nile, and this news supplied us with the true interpretation. The General got away by the next train, and in the afternoon sent back this telegram:

"Arrive 9.15; sail Wednesday next."

Having returned so recently from India, the General had all that he wanted in the way of field-service uniform and camp kit. Though twenty-four hours seemed a short time in which to make preparations for such a momentous journey, still he got away more comfortably than the other men who had received the same short summons. On Tuesday morning he cleared up work in the office, and handed over {187} his Brigade; he left Aldershot in the evening, and started from Charing Cross at 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 5, 1898, for Egypt, via Ma.r.s.eilles.

There is no need to tell over again the long story of the gradual loss of the Soudan to Egypt, with the encroachment of the Dervish Empire, nor of the fall of Khartoum with the death of General Gordon ("my brother dreamer in an iron race") on January 26, 1885, nor of the patient preparation that had been going on in the thirteen years that had pa.s.sed. This book is concerned only with the final act of the drama, the defeat of the forces of the Khalifa Abdullahi, and the recovery of the capital.

In 1898 Sir Herbert Kitchener was Sirdar of the Egyptian Army. He had organised his force for the purpose it was to fulfil, and had gradually crept onwards up the Nile, until, on September 3, 1897, he reached and occupied Berber. At that point he was, as it were, within striking distance of Khartoum. This view seems also to have been held by the enemy, for in December the Intelligence Department heard of warlike preparations on his part. This report precipitated the ma.s.sing of the forces on our side. The Sirdar knew that he could call for the a.s.sistance of British troops when the real struggle was to take place, and he made his call in December.

Orders were immediately issued for the concentration of three battalions at Wady Halfa. The 1st Lincolnshire and the 1st Cameron {188} Highlanders were already at Cairo, the 1st Warwickshire were moved from Alexandria, while the 1st Seaforth Highlanders at Malta were warned and shipped to Cairo in a very short s.p.a.ce of time. This regiment was also pushed forward, as soon as others had been brought from Crete and Gibraltar and Burma, to maintain the usual garrison in Lower Egypt. The command of this service Brigade was given to Major-General W. F. Gatacre, C.B., D.S.O. Major d'Oyly Snow accompanied him as Brigade-Major, and Captain R. G. Brooke as A.D.C.

The General proceeded by train to a.s.souan, and by boat to Wady Halfa, which he reached on Thursday, January 25. It was here that he first met the Sirdar. But the troops had already pa.s.sed on in front to Railhead, which was then the other side of Abu Hamed. From Wady Halfa the new Desert Railway, which was still under construction, leaves the Nile and strikes out to the south-east across the open country towards Abu Hamed, a journey of about 250 miles.

Writing from Camp Guheish, about seventeen miles south of Abu Hamed, on February 2, the General says:

"We arrived here last night about eight o'clock, after a long journey across the desert from Halfa. Such a desert--not a thing to be seen but sand and a few low black rocks jutting out of the plain. A few straw-coloured birds, like stonechats, and a wagtail I saw at one place; goodness knows what they live on. At {189} one o'clock we were within one mile of Abu Hamed, and were steaming steadily along, when, in ploughing through a sand-drift, we went off the line, and had to turn to and clear the line with the few shovels on the train and our hands. Fortunately we were only a mile from Abu Hamed, so I sent on a messenger, and in fifty minutes a relief train came up, and, with the help of jacks, the engine was got on to the line again in four hours.

It was fortunate we did not run off the line in the middle of the Desert, or we should have been delayed at least a day, and would have been put to inconvenience for food, though of course we had some.

Well, I found Snow waiting for us, and we detrained our horses safely, and then, after going on another mile, we came to our camp, placed between the Nile and the railway--a howling desert, with a tremendous wind blowing night and day. The dust fills everything, but the climate up to date is magnificent, and I hope will continue so for a long time; quite cold at night and in the morning, sufficient to make me put on my great-coat, and at night, though of course I sleep in my clothes, I am glad of all the blankets I can put on.... The Maxim guns I left at Halfa temporarily, as we haven't got sufficient food for the mules yet, but as soon as the train is running through we shall have them up."

A fortnight later the railway had grown longer, and as Railhead advanced, so the British Brigade moved southwards and finally camped at Abu Dis.

Gatacre used the three weeks that the troops were encamped by the railway to get in touch with his Brigade--to feel and to improve their {190} marching powers. His methods excited some comment at the time, but afterwards, when there was a real call for exceptional exertions, it was frankly admitted that the previous training had been of great value. "It is impossible to deny that, while discipline and health were successfully maintained, the general efficiency was greatly increased."[1]

[1] _The River War_, by Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. i. p. 366.

There were, however, two directions in which efficiency was seriously hampered--boots and bullets. The General writes on February 2:

"The present-shaped bullet .303 Lee-Metford rifle has little stopping power. Well, we have only this cla.s.s of ammunition, so I am altering the shape of the bullet to that of the Dum-Dum bullet, which has a rounded point. I do this by filing the point off. Before I left Cairo I provided four hundred files and small gauges to test the length of the altered bullet, and daily here we have 2,800 men engaged on this work. I borrowed fifty railway rails and mounted them flat side uppermost, to form anvils on which to file. We have a portion of men unpacking, and another portion packing, so that the same men are always at the same work. The men are getting very sharp at it; it would make a capital picture. This is a terrible place for boots, and many of the men whose boots were not new at starting have mere apologies for boots on their feet. Fortunately, we have time to rectify this, and I have taken the necessary steps."

And again a week later:

"The men are working very well; we have {191} no drink, and therefore no crime or sickness. I am getting on well with altering our ammunition. We have 3,000,000 rounds to alter, but are making good progress, altering about 80,000 rounds per day."

In the same letter we read:

"There are crocodiles in the river here, but not many. A fisherman caught one about three feet long, a most vicious little brute, who snaps at everyone and everything; he is tied by the middle with a piece of string, and swims about in a bath; he will probably be eaten when his master gets hungry. Three days ago a gazelle was trapped and sent in to us by a native. He was uninjured, and a beautiful little brute, with large eyes like Lorna's. We all decided to keep him as a pet, and he got quite tame in a few hours. But alas! we got hungry, and some one suggested that he might escape--so we ate him. Perhaps it was the wisest course."

In a letter dated Abu Dis, February 24, we get the first word of the forced march that was ordered on the following day: