General Gatacre Part 21

This feeling of exaggerated personal responsibility led the General to take up his position at the head of his Brigade. In his letter written four days later he antic.i.p.ates the criticism that would be levelled against him on this account, and shows that he had weighed the point, and had deliberately forsaken the traditional place. Scientific soldiers may criticise his action, but, according to Mr. Churchill, there was to a civilian a certain grim splendour in the spectacle.[2]

[2] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 468.

In the General's last letter before the fight we find the following words:

"My men are ready. I have taught them all I know. We shall do our best, and I think my regiments will do all I expect of them; G.o.d bless you."

[Sidenote: The a.s.sault]

The battle of the Atbara was fought on Good Friday, April 8, 1898. It was a brilliant victory, and resulted in the capture of Mahmoud and the {203} total defeat of his army. The enemy's losses were estimated at 40 Emirs and 3,000 Dervishes killed. On our side the losses were 24 killed and 101 wounded in the British Brigade, and 56 killed and 371 wounded in the Egyptian Army. It is interesting to note that the casualties in the two Egyptian Brigades, which took part in the a.s.sault on the zariba simultaneously with the British regiments, amount to 381, which gives a higher ratio per Brigade than the figure for the British troops, which is 125. So that it is scarcely possible to maintain that the formation adopted in Gatacre's brigade was peculiarly destructive.

The General's own letter of April 14 from Darmali furnishes a very graphic account of the engagement and the return march:

"They all did very well, but I had to get a bit forward to watch that all went well. Between you and me, a General Officer should not get up into the firing line of his Brigade without good reason; this I know, but I had good reasons for going there. When your whole Brigade only covers a s.p.a.ce of 200 yards by 200 yards, it is immaterial where you are, so far as the penetration of bullets is concerned, but what is important is that the G.O.C. should be where he can watch any important point.... Well, our men started the ball, and we pushed straight on over the stockade. It was pretty hot when we were pulling away the zariba fence; the ground was flying up as if it was being harrowed all round me, with the fire of the riflemen, and I lost a terrible bunch of men at that {204} spot. Of course I saw the sooner we got to the stockade the sooner we should stop the rifle fire, so we rushed it, and as soon as we were in we soon killed all the riflemen and the spearmen there, but we had a real good fight. The general operations of the day, however, were as follows: On evening of the 7th (Thursday) the British Brigade and three Egyptian Brigades moved out from Abadar at 6 p.m., my Brigade leading; we moved in square about three miles, sat down in the Desert, had some food and water, and slept in square till 1 o'clock a.m. Of course we took no blankets or anything with us, merely one day's food, ammunition, and water. At one o'clock we moved on in square, the other brigades following; it was moonlight, and a curious sight to see these three enormous hollow squares moving solemnly on with not a note or a whisper even--no smoking. We went on till just before dawn, then halted and deployed into line; a fine line it was--the Camerons, Seaforths, and Lincolnshires, with the Warwicks in column on the left flank at right angles.

"We then advanced a bit, till we could see the Dem (zariba), pulled up, and commenced firing with our artillery, in hopes of drawing Mahmoud out to fight, and secondly of pounding his army well before we a.s.saulted the position. Our cavalry was on my left, watching the left flank; the Dervishes made several attempts to get their cavalry out, but failed. Well, after hammering away for an hour, the order for a.s.sault was given, and away we went, the, Camerons covering the front of the a.s.saulting column, and firing as they went; directly we got on to the crest of the hill men began to tumble about, and I gave the order to rush the zariba and stockade.

{205}

[Sidenote: The return march]

"We lost some very good officers and men killed, but that must always be; we lost fewer than I expected. Captain Findlay, Camerons, a nice fellow, was killed getting over the zariba. Captain Urquhart, of the Camerons, too, was killed. He had just come back from the Staff College on purpose to take part in the expedition. Gore was quite a boy. I was with Captain Findlay most of the march to the zariba, as his was the company of direction, and as we were marching princ.i.p.ally by the stars, I had to be there or thereabouts. After they were dead I cut off a bit of hair from Findlay and Urquhart to send home; Gore had had his hair cut so short that none was procurable. We buried them all in one grave, immediately after the fight. A curious sight: the Pipers and Buglers of a Soudanese battalion played the Dead March in Saul, then the Pipers of the Camerons and Seaforths played a Lament, then we filled in the grave. We had amongst the four Brigades about 600 killed and wounded, and we had, immediately we had buried the dead and dressed the wounded, to carry all these men back about eight miles across the desert. We told off eight men to each stretcher, and moved slowly homewards, leaving at 6 p.m. The fight was over about 8.45 a.m. I think, but it took us all day to dress the wounded and build sheds for them (of bushes). The sun, of course, is very hot, and we had all to sit in the desert, as the bush and the river-bank was so full of dead and dying Dervishes as to make it inadvisable for our men to lie there.

"Now I suppose we shall be here for three months, to refit and prepare for the next go-in at Khartoum, which will require careful doing."

{206}

The Sirdar was naturally very much gratified at the decisive nature of his victory, and was overwhelmed with telegrams of congratulation. The following quotation from an article in _Blackwood's Magazine_ of December 1902 tells us how the Sirdar expressed himself to his colleague:

"Kitchener was dictating his dispatch to the Queen when there pa.s.sed in front of us a pony led by a syce, and laden with spoils selected from that field of plenty with the praiseworthy discrimination of an art connoisseur. Kitchener hailed the man, and selecting the finest coat of mail and the most beautifully finished spear, bade me take them to General Gatacre with his warmest thanks for the splendid gallantry and good judgment with which he had led his fine Brigade. I seem now to see the pleasant light that shone in that brave soldier's eyes as I gave him the message word for word. What a splendid fellow, and how willingly any of us would have given our right hands to save him from the fate that befell him--at the hands of his own chiefs--in South Africa."[3]

[3] _Ex_ article, "Campaigning with Kitchener," December 1902, p. 738.

In the official dispatch the Sirdar wrote:

"The high state of efficiency to which the British Brigade was brought is, I consider, in a large measure due to the untiring energy and devotion to duty of Major-General Gatacre and the loyal support rendered him by the commanding officers of his battalions, all of whom he has brought to favourable notice. During the engagement on the 8th inst. General Gatacre showed a fine example of gallant leading. The {207} cordiality and good feeling existing between the British and Egyptian troops, who have fought shoulder to shoulder, is to a great extent due to the hearty co-operation of General Gatacre, and I cannot speak too highly of the services rendered by him and the troops under his command in the recent operations."[4]

[4] _The Times_, Wednesday, May 25, 1898.

All through May, June, and July the time hung heavily for the British Brigade. They were quartered in the villages of Darmali and El Sillem, the General's headquarters being at the former. The temperature ran up to 106 and 108 in the shade, but he makes light of the heat and says, "One does not feel it as one does in India."

One little incident of these weary days has survived, and is recorded by an officer in his recollections.

"When the General was inspecting the Ordnance workshops at our camp on the Nile, a non-commissioned officer was brought to his notice as having done very good work. Gatacre complimented him highly, and said:

"'Now, what can I do for you? I'll tell you what, you shall carry my flag when we advance to Omdurman.'

"I believe the man's face was a picture, and he did not see it at all in the same light."[5]

[5] _With the 72nd Highlanders in the Sudan Campaign_, by Colonel Granville Egerton.

For, as all the Brigade knew, the General's flag had been carried at the battle of the Atbara by Staff-Sergeant Wyeth, who had been shot through the knee and had subsequently died of his {208} wound, so that the non-commissioned officer had good cause to look on it as an undesirable honour.

This matter of carrying a flag into action has also aroused comment, but it is recorded that the Sirdar was always accompanied by the red Egyptian Flag, and it is probable that, in flying a little Union Jack behind him, the General had merely adopted this practice to flatter the nationality of his troops.

At the end of May he made a trip in a gunboat to Shendy and Metemma, which he much enjoyed. In June he took a fortnight's leave to Alexandria and Cairo. It was while staying there that he received official intimation of his having been advanced to Major-General's rank, for hitherto his name had appeared in the Army List as a Colonel with the temporary and local rank of Major-General. According to regulations, a medical examination was necessary before this promotion could be confirmed. The idea that there could be any question about his health amused Gatacre greatly, and he offered, as a test, to run a hundred yards' race with the Princ.i.p.al Medical Officer. The challenge was politely declined, and an appointment made for the formal examination.

[Sidenote: Promotion]

In August Gatacre had the great satisfaction of finding himself in command of a Division in the field. A second Brigade of British troops was being sent up, and Colonel Wauchope[6] and Colonel Lyttelton[7]

arrived from England to take {209} over the First and Second Brigades respectively. But however gratifying this promotion might be, it lifted him farther from the soldiers and the fighting, and it is owing to this circ.u.mstance that his name was so little mentioned in the story of the fight before Omdurman. This elevation, however, made no difference to his work or his activity. On August 17 he writes from Dakila:

[6] The late Major-General Andrew Wauchope, C.B.

[7] General the Hon. Sir Neville Lyttelton, G.C.B.

"We are very busy now with embarkations and detrainments of troops arriving from the north; we are up nearly every night, as trains arrive at most unearthly hours; this of course is unavoidable. My first Brigade has gone on, and the embarkation of the second commences at daybreak to-morrow morning.... We move by steamers towing barges to Wad Bishara, about 145 miles, and thence by route march."

Wad Bishara is just below the Sixth Cataract, and lies on the western bank about fifty-five miles north of Omdurman.

The defeat of the Dervish army at the battle of Omdurman took place on Sunday, September 2, 1898. The story was told with much detail in the newspapers at the time, and has since been elaborately set out in _The River War_, but, notwithstanding the existence of many records, this book would not be complete without some account of such an important event. Though far from being a comprehensive narrative, the General's letter is interesting in itself:

"_September_ 7, 1898.

"On the morning of September 1 we marched twelve miles through jungle, finding everywhere {210} traces of the flight of the Dervish outposts--dead animals, men, etc., who had been killed by them, probably people attempting to desert.