General Gatacre Part 20

"I am so frightfully busy that I cannot find time for anything, so I think I may as well sit down and write to you for relaxation.

Yesterday we had a seventy-mile ride to a place called Bastinab and back, looking out for future camping-grounds, for I have got a hint to be ready to move on at once, as Mahmoud at Metemma has crossed over to the east side of the Nile, and threatens to attack Atbara and Berber.... We may have to move and stack our camp baggage, etc., by the side of the line {192} in the desert, and march on in light order, the same sort of thing as in Chitral--a most exciting business this would be, wouldn't it?

"My Maxim Battery came in to-day; I am quite pleased to get it. The men are looking splendid, and we have only thirty or so sick out of a total strength of nearly 3,000. I have now got my camel transport, something like 800 animals; this makes me more independent, and if I am required to move I can do so."

Between February 22 and 25 a series of telegrams had been flying between the Sirdar at Berber and the Brigadier at Abu Dis. All the details of the march which would be necessary to bring the British troops forward were proposed on the one side and sanctioned on the other, so that when on Friday, February 25, the following telegram was received at midday, orders were immediately issued and the start was made that evening.

"News has come in that enemy in ten rubs advancing. You can therefore move Brigade as arranged.--SIRDAR."

(A rub means any number between 500 and 1,500 men.)

To which this message was sent in reply:

"I shall arrive at Atbara Camp nine or ten o'clock on Wednesday second with Maxims and 2,000 men; guns and cavalry will arrive on first.--GATACRE."

I have found a rough draft of the official {193} report of the forced march made by the British Brigade on Berber in accordance with the order received, and have decided to print this narrative almost as it stands.

"The 1st Lincolnshire and detachment 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment, with the six guns Maxim Battery, Royal Engineer detachment, Army Hospital Corps, and Army Service Corps, moved to Railhead, sixteen miles, by an empty ballast train, thence by route march seven and a half miles to camp at El Sherreik, which they reached at daylight on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, February 26, all well. Remainder of Warwicks moved at midnight, arriving at Sherreik 7.30 a.m. The 1st Cameron Highlanders bivouacked by the side of the railway, and on the arrival of a train at 5 a.m. were railed to Railhead. They reached camp at 9.30 a.m. all well.

"At El Sherreik the Brigade halted for the day, and at 10 p.m. started on their march for Diveryah. Tea was made at Nedi, and the troops left again, after resting, at 2.30 a.m. on Sunday. Bastinab was reached shortly after daybreak. Captain Bainbridge, Egyptian Army, supplied firewood, and fires were lit, it being very cold. Here sixty pairs of fanta.s.ses were taken, as no water was available _en route_. The road onward proved rocky and sandy in places, and was very heavy going for tired men, but Diveryah was reached at 3 p.m. The stony nature of the country completely wore out many of the boots. The last three miles were very trying, as the sun was hot; there was no shade, and the men felt the weight of their equipment. The bivouac was laid in a small nullah, running at right angles to the Nile, and the men made themselves very comfortable. Finding that a {194} great number of men had worn through the soles of their boots, I arranged with Captain Strickland, Egyptian Army, to convey about 400 men, under the command of Major Napier, Cameron Highlanders, by an Egyptian steamer to Berber.

They left Diveryah on Monday morning, February 28, and reached Berber the same day, where they were refitted from the boot store of the Egyptian Army, and rejoined the Brigade on arrival.

"At 2.30 a.m. on Monday, February 28, the Brigade moved from its bivouac _en route_ to Um Hosheyo by the desert track, which, almost immediately after leaving the bivouac, lay through brushwood and broken ground. Owing to touch being lost by the rear battalion, a delay of three-quarters of an hour ensued, when the march was resumed over a rough and stony piece of country. After about five miles the track improved, and at 6.15 a.m. the first man of the Brigade marched into Um Hosheyo. Continuing its march the advanced guard reached a grove of Dom palms at Wady Hamar at 8.30 a.m., where a halt was made till 4.30 p.m. to enable the troops to cook and sleep. At 4.30 p.m. the troops again moved forward over a good level track, and continued marching until 10.45 p.m., at which hour Genenetti was reached. Total distance from El Sherreik to Genenetti forty-five miles. Here we dropped another 122 men whose boots had completely gone.

"At 3 a.m. on Tuesday, March 1, the Brigade paraded and moved off along a fairly good track, heavy in places, for Aboudyeh, twelve miles.

After a trying hot march the Brigade reached a point two miles north of Aboudyeh at 9 a.m., where they rested till 4.30 p.m. Three men were reported missing, but it was subsequently {195} ascertained that they had proceeded with other men who had worn out their boots from Genenetti, under command of Major Snow, Brigade-Major, with spare ammunition and commissariat supplies. At 4.30 p.m. the troops left Aboudyeh for El Ha.s.sa, thirteen miles, a very hot evening, over (at first) a good hard plain, crossed here and there by heavy sandy khors; there was little wind, and the column marched till 11 p.m. through dense clouds of dust. After marching about two miles the Brigade halted to give the men water at Aboudyeh, where a certain number of wells containing brackish water were found. The inhabitants turned out and provided _dilus_ (buckets) and ropes, willingly giving the men water. Company after company filed past, each man getting half a canteen full of water. After this halt no more water was obtainable, as the route lay inland, and the men had to rely on their water-bottles.

"At 11 p.m. on Tuesday the Brigade filed on to the El Ha.s.sa camping-ground, about three miles north of Berber, and bivouacked by the side of the Nile. Two miles before reaching El Ha.s.sa, the General Officer Commanding received a letter by camel messenger from His Excellency the Sirdar, directing that the column should halt for twenty-four hours, and pa.s.s through Berber at 5.30 a.m. on the morning of March 3. The Brigade, therefore, remained halted till 3.30 a.m. on the morning of Thursday the 3rd, when it marched for Berber.

"On arriving at the north end of the town of Berber, the column was reinforced by the 400 men who had been refitted with boots from the Egyptian Army stores. The Sirdar met the column at about 5.30 a.m. on the outskirts of the town, and was heartily cheered by the troops {196} as they pa.s.sed him. The bands of the Soudanese battalions played in the three regiments, and the men met with a great reception from all ranks of the battalions in garrison, who turned out to a man, and afterwards provided tea and cigarettes for the men, and breakfasts for the officers, at the camping-ground. The officers likewise received much hospitality at the hands of the Sirdar and the various messes in garrison. At 4.30 p.m. the troops moved on again to Camp Dabeika, eleven miles from Berber, along an excellent desert track, about a mile from, and parallel to, the Nile. The Brigade arrived with no sick man.

The conduct of the troops during the whole march was excellent; there were no cases of difficulty between them and the natives of the country, and there was no crime, which may be considered as highly satisfactory and showing the state of discipline in which the commanding officers hold their regiments."

The General marched the greater part of the way on foot, and made use of his spare horses to mount footsore men. When questioned on this point, he gave the following reply in a letter:

"With regard to my doing our long march on foot, it was nothing to me; troops necessarily march slowly, and it is pleasanter and less fatiguing (not to speak of its being a better example) for me to walk all the way. I always had my horse with me, and I constantly had to get on to go to the head of the column, or the tail, to see if all was going right, and this made a nice change."

The distance from Railhead to El Ha.s.sa, just {197} short of Berber, was sixty-five to seventy miles, and this journey was accomplished between 10 p.m. on Sat.u.r.day and 11 p.m. on Tuesday--seventy-three hours.

Another fifteen miles on Thursday completed the march to Dabeika.

This concentration had its effect on the enemy, who gave up any idea of attacking the Sirdar on the Nile, and the camp was unmolested for the next three weeks. Some critics have on this account made out that Gatacre overtaxed his troops in bringing them along at an unnecessary pace in such a climate; but surely the measure of the necessity for rapidity lies in the danger which this junction averted rather than in the security which it brought about. Moreover, it was the Sirdar on the spot who decided and gave orders: the General carried them out. At the time he wrote of it as a race between himself and Mahmoud.

{198}

CHAPTER XIII

1898

ATBARA AND OMDURMAN

[Sidenote: Combined force]

All through the winter every movement on the part of the Dervish leaders was carefully watched by the gun-boats on the Nile and the Egyptian cavalry on its banks. The Intelligence Department had a system of espionage by which the feeling inside Omdurman was made known to them. The Sirdar knew that the Khalifa was unwilling to turn out his main army, but that a large force was preparing to move out of Metemma under the combined command of the Emir Mahmoud and the cavalry leader Osman Digna. Before long the Sirdar knew that this force had crossed to Shendy on the right bank of the Nile on February 28, and that on March 13 they had reached Aliab, which is only twenty miles south of Dakila, the Egyptian outpost. But their subsequent designs were not known. It was doubtful whether their scheme was to attack the Sirdar at Dakila, a fort which had recently been built on the right bank of the Nile, where the large tributary stream of the Atbara flows in from the south-east, or to make a dash {199} on Berber and sever the railway communication lower down. Eventually the Dervish leader found himself unable to carry out either of these schemes, the fortress appearing too formidable after the arrival of the British contingent, and Berber proving too remote. He decided therefore to threaten both points, and took up a strong position on the banks of the Atbara, about thirty miles above Dakila, which he fortified and entrenched elaborately, and waited for his foes to take the initiative.

The force with which the Sirdar could meet the enemy was composed of the British Brigade, which had now been completed to four battalions by the arrival of the Seaforth Highlanders, and three Brigades of the Egyptian Army, commanded respectively by Colonel Maxwell, Colonel Macdonald, and Colonel Lewis. There were also eight squadrons of cavalry, and two Maxim guns under Colonel Broadwood, six companies of the Camel Corps under Major Tudway, and some artillery, both heavy and light, under Colonel Long. The total ran up to nearly 14,000 men of all arms. This force was concentrated at Kenur on the Nile, and all the officers seem genuinely to have held the opinion that contact with the enemy might occur at any moment. But as it turned out, it was not till seventeen days after the Sirdar's force started on their march to meet the enemy that the two armies met.

On Sunday, March 20, the whole force marched across the angle of the desert to Da {200} Hudi, a camp on the Atbara River about twelve miles south-east of Kenur. They started as if only for a reconnaissance in force, for we read: "We are taking only one day's supplies and what we stand up in, one blanket being carried for us on camels." The hospital staff and transport was cut down to such narrow dimensions that it was hardly adequate for the work when the big fight really took place.

Through all the next seventeen days the force lived on tinned beef and biscuits, in daily antic.i.p.ation of closing with the enemy. But what was privation, discomfort, and hardship to every man in the force was vexation of spirit also to Gatacre. Writing on March 30, he says:

"We may move to-morrow against Mahmoud, who is still in his entrenched jungle position at Hilgi on the east bank of the Atbara, eighteen miles south of this. I have been urging the Sirdar to move forward and attack him, as we have been inactive for some days, while Mahmoud is merely sitting and waiting for us. The inaction has a bad effect, both on our men and on the enemy."

And again on April 3:

"We are leaving the camp to-morrow, and going on to one three and a half to four miles south of Abadar. I was in great hopes that the Sirdar would attack Mahmoud at once. I thought I had persuaded him, but he wired my recommendation to Lord Cromer, and gave his own opinion and that of General Hunter, which were for waiting. To-day he got a wire from Lord Cromer, deciding not to attack--a great {201} pity, I think. At present the situation is as under: Mahmoud is in a zariba about ten miles from here, with about 20,000 men, very much crushed up for s.p.a.ce, exceedingly hard up for food, and so placed that they cannot, in the event of a reverse, get away at all as an organised force. There never was such a chance, and we are missing it."

Continuing his letter on the following day, he says:

"Yesterday, after writing so far, I got a bad go of colic, or malaria, or something, which made me feel very bad; but I am better to-day, and hope to be all right to-morrow. I hear that another telegram has come from Lord Cromer, saying, on consideration he leaves the matter to the Sirdar, so I presume he will now attack as soon as possible. I hope so. We have moved to-day to Abadar, and are encamped in a shady belt of trees, near the river, but it is getting very hot."

[Sidenote: A forward policy]

During this time there had been frequent reconnaissances in the direction of the enemy's camp by the cavalry and Camel Corps and artillery. Three small actions had been fought; and with the help of the information thus obtained, and from the tales of deserters, the position, size, and strength of Mahmoud's camp were known with considerable accuracy.

It was the responsibility which Gatacre had incurred by advocating an early attack on this fortified position, against the advice of others better acquainted with Soudan warfare, that {202} coloured all his dispositions when the day arrived. He did not, however, let his natural forwardness of character deceive him as to the resistance to be overcome. The author of _The River War_ has already made this point, although he did not know the true interpretation of the situation.

"It is impossible not to sympathise with General Gatacre's obvious determination that, whatever happened to the other parts of the a.s.sault, the British Brigade should burst into the enclosure at all costs.[1]

[1] _The River War_, vol. i. p. 457.