With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman by G. A. Henty (the beach read TXT) 📗

of the other gunboats--who had been dining on board. He had become a general favourite, during the time he had spent with them, and their congratulations on his safe return were warm and hearty.

"You may imagine our surprise when, after the fight was over," said Captain Keppel, "it was discovered that you were missing. No one could imagine what had become of you. One of the blacks who had been working your Maxim said they had not noticed your leaving them; and that, when they found you were not there, they supposed you had come to confer with me. Then I sent for your man; but he, too, was missing. We searched everywhere, but no signs of you, dead or alive, and no marks of blood were to be found. So it seemed that the matter must remain a mystery. Early the next morning, however, we saw a white rag waving on the bank, and then a black entered the water and swam out towards us. I sent the boat to meet him, and when he came on board I found that he was your man, and the mystery was explained. I fancy I used some strong language; for I never before heard of a man being so hare-brained as to spring overboard, in the middle of a battle, and pick up a woman, without saying a word to anyone of what he was doing, and that with the boat still steaming ahead. Of course, your man told us that it was Mahmud's wife you had saved, and that she had taken you under her protection; but I did not expect that, among those fanatics, your life would be spared.

"Now, tell us all about your adventures, and how you got down here just in time to see our fellows enter, in triumph. I suppose you managed to give them the slip, somehow?"

Gregory then told his story. When he had concluded, Captain Keppel said:

"Well, you have the luck of the old one! First, you have got hold of as faithful a fellow as is to be found in all Egypt, or anywhere else; and, in the second place, you have been in the battle of Atbara, while we have been kicking our heels here, and fuming at being out of it altogether, except for our bloodless capture of Shendy.

"So you say the Sirdar blew you up? I am not surprised at that. You know the story of the man who fell overboard, in the old flogging days, and the captain sentenced him to two dozen lashes, for leaving the ship without orders."

"I don't think he was really angry; for when I went to him, the next evening, he was a good deal milder. Of course, he did say again that I had done wrong, but not in the same tone as before; and he seemed a good deal interested in what I told him about Mahmud, and how my boy had risked his life to rescue me, and had succeeded almost by a miracle. He said there is a lot of good in these black fellows, if one could but get at it. They have never had a chance yet; but, given good administration, and the suppression of all tribal feuds with a stern hand, they might be moulded into anything."

"And are you coming back to us now, Mr. Hilliard?"

"I have no idea. I don't suppose anything will be settled, for a time. There is not likely to be much doing, anyway, except on the railway; and even your gunboats will have an easy time of it, as there is not an enemy left on this side of the sixth cataract.

"The Dervishes who escaped are pretty sure to cross the Atbara. There are enough of them still, when they rally, to beat off any attacks that might be made by our tribesmen from Kassala."

Chapter 13: The Final Advance.

A few days after the return of headquarters to Berber, Mahmud was sent down country, and Fatma was permitted to accompany him. She expressed to Gregory, in touching terms, her gratitude for what he had done for her.

"We have been of mutual assistance," said Gregory. "I have the same reason to be grateful to you, as you have to thank me. I saved your life, and you saved mine. You were very kind to me, when I was a captive--I have done as much as I could for you, since you have been with us. So we are quits. I hope you will be happy with Mahmud. We do not treat our prisoners badly, and except that he will be away from the Soudan, he will probably be more comfortable than he has ever been in his life."

Gregory was now employed in the transport department, and journeyed backwards and forwards, with large convoys of camels, to the head of the railway. The line was completed to Berber, but the officers charged with its construction were indefatigable; and, as fast as the materials came up, it was pushed on towards the Atbara. Complete as had been the victory on that river, the Sirdar saw that the force which had been sufficient to defeat the twenty thousand men, under Mahmud, was not sufficiently strong for the more onerous task of coping with three times that number, fighting under the eye of the Khalifa, and certain to consist of his best and bravest troops. He therefore telegraphed home for another British brigade, and additional artillery, with at least one regiment of cavalry--an arm in which the Egyptian Army was weak.

Preparations were at once made for complying with the request. The 21st Lancers, 1st battalion of Grenadier Guards, 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, 2nd battalion of the 5th Lancashire Fusiliers, a field battery, a howitzer battery, and two forty-pounders, to batter the defences of Omdurman, should the Khalifa take his stand, were sent. A strong detachment of the Army Service Corps and the Royal Army Medical Corps was to accompany them, but they had yet some months to wait, for the advance would not be made until the Nile was full, and the gunboats could ascend the cataract.

However, there was much to be done, and the troops did not pass the time in idleness. Atbara Fort was to be the base, and here the Egyptian battalions built huts and storehouses. The Soudanese brigades returned to Berber, and the transport of provisions and stores for them was thus saved. The British at Darmali were made as comfortable as possible, and no effort was spared to keep them in good health, during the ensuing hot weather. A small theatre was constructed, and here smoking concerts were held. There was also a race meeting, and one of the steamers took parties, of the men who were most affected by the heat, for a trip down the Nile. They were practised in long marches early in the morning, and although, of course, there was some illness, the troops on the whole bore the heat well.

Had there been a prospect of an indefinitely long stay, the result might have been otherwise; but they knew that, in a few months, they would be engaged in even sterner work than the last battle, that Khartoum was their goal, and with its capture the power of the Khalifa would be broken for ever, and Gordon avenged.

Early in April the railway reached Abadia, a few miles from Berber, and in a short time a wonderful transformation took place here. From a sandy desert, with scarce a human being in sight, it became the scene of a busy industry. Stores were sorted and piled as they came up by rail.

Three gunboats arrived in sections, and these were put together. They were stronger, and much better defended by steel plates than the first gunboats; and each of them carried two six-pounder quick-firing guns, a small howitzer, four Maxims, and a searchlight. They were, however, much slower than the old boats, and could do very little in the way of towing.

Besides these, eight steel double-deck troop barges were brought up, in sections, and put together. Three Egyptian battalions came up from Merawi to aid in the work, which not only included building the gunboats and barges, but executing the repairs to all the native craft, and putting them in a thoroughly serviceable state.

In June the railway reached the Atbara, and for the first time for two years and a half, the officers who had superintended its construction had a temporary rest. The stores were now transferred from Abadia to the Atbara, and two trains ran every day, each bringing up something like two hundred tons of stores.

In the middle of July two Egyptian battalions left Atbara and proceeded up the Nile, one on each bank, cutting down trees and piling them for fuel for the steamers. As the river rose, four steamers came up from Dongola, together with a number of sailing boats; and in the beginning of August the whole flotilla, consisting of ten gunboats, five unarmed steamers, eight troop barges, and three or four hundred sailing boats, were all assembled.

By this time the reinforcements from home were all at Cairo, and their stores had already been sent up. It was arranged that they were to come by half battalions, by squadrons, and by batteries, each one day behind the other. To make room for them, two Egyptian battalions were sent up to the foot of the Shabluka cataract.

The six black battalions left Berber on July 30th, and arrived at Atbara the next day. There were now four brigades in the infantry divisions instead of three, two battalions having been raised from the Dervishes taken at the battle of Atbara. These were as eager as any to join in the fight against their late comrades.

This was scarcely surprising. The Baggara, the tyrants of the desert, are horsemen. The infantry were, for the most part, drawn from the conquered tribes. They had enlisted in the Khalifa's force partly because they had no other means of subsistence, partly from their innate love of fighting. They had, in fact, been little better than slaves; and their condition, as soldiers in the Egyptian Army, was immeasurably superior to that which they had before occupied.

Broadwood, with nine squadrons of Egyptian cavalry, was already on the western bank of the river opposite Atbara; and was to be joined at Metemmeh by the camel corps, and another squadron of horse from Merawi.

On the 3rd of August the six Soudanese battalions left Fort Atbara for the point of concentration, a few miles below the cataract. To the sides of each gunboat were attached two of the steel barges; behind each were two native craft. All were filled as tightly as they could be crammed with troops. They were packed as in slavers, squatting by the side of each other as closely as sardines in a box. The seven steamers and the craft they took with them contained six thousand men, so crowded that a spectator remarked that planks might have been laid on their heads, and that you could have walked about on them; while another testified that he could not have shoved a walking stick between them anywhere. White men could not have supported it for an hour, but these blacks and Egyptians had a hundred miles to go, and the steamers could not make more than a knot an hour against the rapid stream, now swollen to its fullest.

While they were leaving, the first four companies of the Rifle Brigade arrived. Every day boats laden with stores went forward, every day white troops came up. Vast as was the quantity of stores sent off, the piles at Atbara did not seem to diminish. Ninety days' provisions, forage, and necessaries for the whole force had been accumulated there, and as fast as these were taken away they were replaced by others from Berber.

Like everyone connected with the transport or store department, Gregory had to work from daybreak till dark. Accustomed to a warm climate, light in figure, without an ounce of spare flesh, he was able to support the heat, dust, and fatigue better than most; and, as he himself said, it was less trying to be at work, even in the blazing sun, than to lie listless and sweating under the shade of a blanket. There was no necessity, now, to go down the line to make enquiries as to the progress of the stores, or of the laden craft on their way up. the telegraph was established, and the Sirdar, at Atbara, knew the exact position of every one of the units between Cairo and himself; and from every station he received messages constantly, and despatched his orders as frequently.

There was no hitch, whatever. The arrangements were all so perfect that the vast machine, with its numerous parts, moved with the precision of clockwork. Everything was up to time. For a train or steamer, or even a native boat, to arrive half an hour after the time calculated for it, was almost unheard of.

The Sirdar's force