BY THE WAY--FROM CAIRO TO DAKHALA.
Ten days from London to the junction of the Atbara with the Nile: so
far from England and yet so near. By-and-by, no doubt, the Brindisi
mail, speeding in connection with the Khartoum express, will make the
run in seven or eight days. From England to Port Said is now but a
matter of four days by the new Peninsular and Oriental service. It
took me six days from Cairo to reach Dakhala. The officials prefer to
know the place as "Atbara Camp." There is no absolute rule for the
bestowal of proper names, or at least no practice one need care about
in the Soudan, so I prefer to dub the locality by its native title of
Dakhala, or Dakhelha. It saves a word in telegraphing, and there is
more fitness in calling that dusty, dirty enclosure by the less
euphonious name.
One could not but note what a wondrous change in the military and
political situation had been wrought in the land since 1884-85.
Railways had solved every difficulty of dealing with the dervishes.
Quite easily nowadays the remote provinces of the whilom great
Egyptian equatorial empire can be reached and governed. With ordinary
care under the altered conditions millions of Arabs and blacks can be
transformed from chronic-rebellious into trusty loyal subjects. There
has been bloodguiltiness and to spare in the Soudan since 1883-84,
therefore the rehabilitation of the country through the setting up of
just government will be in the nature of discharging a duty long
incumbent upon Great Britain. From the Atbara southward, the Niles and
their tributaries are open to steam navigation the year round. The
possession of these noble waterways, which extend over thousands of
miles, includes the fee-simple of sovereignty in the fertile lands of
the two Nile basins and their commerce. By admirable foresight and
indomitable Anglo-Saxon persistence the Sirdar had achieved a unique
position in African conquest. He had got together an armed force "fit
to go anywhere and to do anything." The heart of Africa was his, to
loose or to bind. Of all the terrible railway rides in the world, for
dirt and discomfort, none compares with the trip from Cairo to Luxor
and Assouan. The carriages are stuffy and unclean, and during the
whole journey one stifles in an opaque atmosphere of grit mixed with
the sweepings of the ages. The calcined earths quickly cushion the
seats, powder you from head to foot, and fill your pockets and every
other receptacle with soil enough to make you feel like a landed
proprietor--or, at any rate, rich enough in loam to lay out a suburban
garden. With all the accessories at hand for the creation of an acrid
and measureless thirst, neither the railway authorities nor private
enterprise have had the wit as yet to provide travellers with the
means of mitigating their sufferings. It is little short of a horror
to think of that journey of over forty hours' duration, which had to
be endured without the succour to be found in a refreshment-room
where, for a consideration, could be got a sparkling cool drink or a
mouthful of passable victuals. Were it to take me a month to travel
the distance by river, if time permitted I had rather adventure next
time upon the Nile than ever go by train over that line again. I
confess I have made the journey by rail frequently but it becomes
really more unendurable each trip. Of course I laid in stores of
liquids and solids for the voyage. I ought to have known better, but
one thinks nothing of the toothache when it is past. The mineral
waters became too hot to drink, and not quite near enough the
boiling-point to make good tea of, whilst, as for the provisions, such
as got not too high, were so swathed in layers of questionable dust
and grit as to be repulsive. Keeping even passably tidy was
impossible, and in personal cleanliness a London scavenger could give
a traveller by rail from Cairo to Assouan many points. It was at Wady
Halfa that I got booked in the way-bill for Dakhala, or Atbara Camp,
390 miles away. The construction of the Halfa-Atbara line was, as I
have said before, a masterpiece of military strategy, the credit for
which is due to the Sirdar. By-and-by a railway bridge will span the
Atbara at Dakhala, and the iron way will be laid into Khartoum. The
170 miles betwixt the Atbara and Khartoum offer no difficulties, and
the line will be laid within a year from the time when the money is
granted the Sirdar for its construction.
Since the foregoing was written, the requisite amount has been voted
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, and the contracts for material have been
issued and signed. About a quarter of a million sleepers have to be
delivered in Egypt before the end of June 1899. The Atbara and forty
small khors will be bridged, and the work be completed in twelve
months. It is intended that the terminus shall be on the east bank
opposite Khartoum.
All the trains on the Halfa-Atbara line carried goods, ordinary
passengers being incidental. Four of my colleagues, Major Sitwell, of
the Egyptian army, and myself got places in a horse-box. In the next
truck to us, likewise a horse-box, were five English officers,
returning to duty with Gatacre's, or rather Wauchope's, brigade at
Darmali. In that same horse-box truck we five contrived to cook, eat,
sleep, and dress for two round days, for, as I have stated, there were
no restaurants or buffets within 1000 miles of the desert railway. The
wayside stations were but sidings or halting-places where the
locomotives drew coal and water, of which small supplies were usually
stored under an Egyptian corporal's guard. Ours was a long and heavy
train, and more than once on the up grade to No. 6 or Summit station
out from Halfa the engine came to a standstill, "to recover its
breath," as the negroes said. In the horse-box we got along together
for the most part very comfortably, accommodating ourselves to the
situation. Such a picnic as we had then made it less of a puzzle to
the common understanding how certain creatures are able to do with a
tight-fitting shell for their house and home. If Major Girouard, R.E.,
had not left the direction of the Soudan military railways--which
under the Sirdar he built--to join the Board of the Egyptian lines, we
should, I believe, have had better provision made for passengers.
Ziehs, or porous native clay-jars to hold cool drinking water, and
various other little accessories to lighten the hardships of the trip
would surely have been provided. Later on, the officials took care to
have ziehs and plenty of cool drinking water in the carriages and
trucks of all trains carrying troops, so that the men had at least
plenty to drink.
On our way up we passed Wauchope's brigade encamped at Es Selim and
Darmali. Colonel Macdonald's 1st and Colonel Maxwell's 2nd Khedivial
Brigades started to march from Berber to Dakhala about that time, the
end of July. Many of the British soldiers, so as not to sleep upon the
ground, had built for themselves benches of mud or sun-dried bricks,
whereon they spread their blankets. The plan secured some immunity
from such crawling things as scorpions and snakes. Sun-baked mud in
the Soudan is a hard and decently clean material for bench or bed. The
Theatres Royal, Darmali and Es Selim, were in full swing, though it
was very 'dog-days' weather. Officers liberally patronised the men's
entertainments and occasionally held jollifications of their own.
There were a good many who exercised the cheerful spirit of Mark
Tapley under the trials of the Soudan. Lively and original skits and
verses were given at these symposiums. Here are a few verses of a
topical song on the refractory blacks and fellaheen fallen under the
condemnation of either the civil or military law and forced to hard
labour. It was written and frequently sung by a clever young engineer
officer:--
We're convicts at work in the Noozle,
We carry great loads on our backs,
And often our warders bamboozle,
And sleep 'neath mountains of sacks.
Chorus: Ri-tooral il looral, &c.
(The Noozle is the commissariat depot.)
We convicts start work at day dawning,
Boilers we mount about noon,
Sleepers we load in the morning,
And rails by the light of the moon.
Our warders are blacks, who cry Masha! (march),
And strike us if we don't obey,
Or else he's a Hamla Ombashi,
Who allows us to fuddle all day.
Hamla Ombashi is a corporal of the transport service, and "fuddle" is
to sit down. It was the chorus with spoken words interlarded that
caught on astonishingly, and showed that the men's lungs were in
magnificent condition. Another howler, but by another author, was
"Roll on to Khartoum." Here is a specimen verse and the chorus:--
Come, forward march, and do your duty,
Though poor your grub, no rum, bad 'bacca,
Step out, for fighting and no booty,
To trace a free red line thro' Africa.
No barney, boys, give over mousing,
True Britons are ye from hill and fen,
Now rally lads, and drop all grousing,
And pull together like soldier-men.
Chorus.
Then roll on, boys, roll on to Khartoum,
March ye and fight by night or by day,
Hasten the hour of the Dervishes' doom,
Gordon avenge in old England's way.
"Grousing" is Tommy Atkins for grumbling, which is an Englishman's
birthright. As for no rum, subsequently the men were allowed two tots
a week; Wednesdays and Saturdays were, I think, the days of issue.
Less than half a gill was each man's share. I am inclined to believe
had there been a daily issue of the same quantity of rum it had been
better, and the young soldiers might have escaped with less fever.
Dakhala had undergone many changes since March. It was bigger in every
respect, but no better as a camping-ground. Truth to tell, it was so
bad as to be well-nigh intolerable. The correspondents' quarters were
exceptionally vile, the location being the worst possible within the
lines. We had no option, and so had to pitch our tents behind the
noozle in a ten-acre waste of dirtiest, lightest loam, which swished
around in clouds by day and night, making us grimy as coal-heavers,
powdering everything, even our food and drink, with gritty dust and
covering us in our blankets inches deep. The river breeze was barred
from us, and the green and fresher banks of the Atbara and the Nile,
beyond the fort, were for other than correspondents' camps. Many rows
of mud huts had been built in the interior. As for the sun-dried brick
parapets and ramparts of the fortifications, these were already
crumbling to ruin or being cast down for use in newer structures. The
lofty wooden lookout staging, called the Eiffel Tower, had been
removed, and its timbers converted to other purposes. On the
completion of the railway to Dakhala, Abadia had become but a
secondary workshop centre. Newer and larger shipbuilding yards and
engine works were erected by the Atbara. Under Lieutenant Bond, R.N.,
and Mr Haig gunboats, steamers, barges and sailing craft were put in
thorough order, native artisans toiling day and night. The clang of
hammermen, riveters, carpenters and caulkers resounded along the river
front. The Dakhala noozle was an immense depot, stuffed full of grain,
provisions, ammunition boxes, ropes, wires, iron, medical stores and
other material, like one of the great London docks. As usual the
indefatigable Greek trader had adventured upon the scene. North of the
fortified lines, with the help of the natives he had run up a mud
town. It consisted of a double row of one-storeyed houses, between
which ran a street of nearly 300 yards. The place, known as the
bazaar, was a hive of stores, wretched cafes, and the like. As the
Sirdar had had all the beer and liquor in the place seized and put
under seal before the advent of Mr T. Atkins, there was little to be
had in Dakhala bazaar besides a not too pure soda-water, coffee,
sardines, beans, maccaroni, oil, tobacco and matches.
[Illustration: STREET IN DAKHALA.]
For six weeks southerly winds blew almost daily. South of 17 degrees,
the northerly breeze does not commence to blow before the end of
August. It was warm, extremely warm, under the burning tropical sun.
The heat bore down like a load upon head and shoulders and enveloped
us like a blast from a roaring furnace. About noontide it was
ordinarily 120 degrees Fahr. in my tent. Still, I am sure it was by no
means so oppressive as at Korti in March 1885. The Atbara and the Nile
helped to temper the fiery glow that radiated from the desert rocks
and sands. At best, the heat is a sore trial, but to be borne with
more patience than the "devils" and sand storms that bother by night
as well as by day. Snow-drifts are mild visitations of Providence
compared with a dust storm or whirlwind. These latter would smother
you, if you would let them, quicker and less respectably than a shroud
of snow. Jack Frost bites mildly, preferring to do his serious work by
dulling the nerves; but the Dust Devil is a cruel tormentor from first
to last. You may bury your head in folds of cloth and mosquito
netting, and sweat and stifle in the attempt, but he snuffs you and
powders you all the same. He puffs his finest clouds in your face, and
round and round you till you find bedding and clothing are no more
protection against him than they are against the Roentgen ray. One
particular night he came in great strength to Dakhala, heaped waves of
sand over us, dug great hollows around our quarters, and completed his
diabolical games by completely overturning two of my colleagues'
tents. I saw my friends emerge from the ruins of canvas, bedding, and
boxes, wild, half-clad, terra-cotta figures, such as may have escaped
from the destruction of Pompeii. But the human mind is a curious
thing. It does not acknowledge defeat easily, and so a victim said to
me he had pulled his tent down to keep it from falling. The Dust Devil
had nothing to do with it.
Early in August the situation assumed a peculiar interest to us of the
fourth estate. We were told that the troops were shortly going forward
to rendezvous at Nasri Island, whereas it was a matter of notoriety
that Wad Habeshi, which was further south, had been selected as the
advanced camp for the army on leaving Dakhala. Of course, not one word
of the true state of matters were we permitted to wire home.
Detachments, true enough, had been sent ahead to "cut wood" and set up
a camp upon Nasri Island. But that was merely to have a secure
secondary depot and hospital station. It had been ascertained after
the occupation of Shendy that the dervishes were in no great strength
at Shabluka or the Sixth Cataract. They occasionally sent down about a
thousand Baggara horsemen to that place, and their riders scouted
around the bluff rocks and hills bordering the Nile on either side of
the "bab," or water-gateway and rapids of Shabluka. As a rule, only
about two hundred of them ever crossed to the east bank. The others
hung around on the west bank, and built low walls for riflemen and dug
a number of trenches and then returned to Omdurman. A few hundred only
remained to guard the forts and the narrow fairway. Much labour had
been expended and considerable rude skill shown by the enemy in
building bastions and other defensive works at various places on the
river,--particularly in the Shabluka gorge and before Omdurman. Why
the Khalifa committed the blunder of making no adequate preparation
for defending the pass at Shabluka it is difficult to understand. Only
one conclusion suggests itself. He was probably afraid to trust his
followers so far from his sight, lest the negroes should desert. We
continually heard from our own blacks that most of Abdullah's
_jehadieh_ Soudani riflemen would come over to us the first chance
they got. Major-Generals Hunter and Gatacre, having learned that the
dervish infantry had been withdrawn from Shabluka, scouted south up to
the cataract and selected Wad Habeshi as a suitable camp and
rendezvous. That village, or rather district, is on the west bank,
south of Nasri Island and but fifteen miles north of Shabluka.
A big zereba was made at Wad Habeshi and trenches were dug. The place,
in short, long before the British troops stirred south beyond Dakhala,
was turned into a fortified post and made the real rendezvous of the
Sirdar's army.
[Illustration: TROOPS GOING TO WAD HABESHI.]
On 2nd August, in the face of a strong south wind, the 1st and 2nd
Khedivial brigades, respectively Colonel Macdonald's and Colonel
Maxwell's, embarked in very close order on steamers and giassas for
Wad Habeshi. The distance was about 140 miles by water from Dakhala,
but it took the gunboats and their tows over three days to get there,
for the craft were deeply ladened with men and stores. The soupy
whirling Nile flood washed the decks of the steamers almost from stem
to stern. It was little short of the rarest good fortune there was no
accident by the way. Everybody turned out to see the brigades off.
Merrily stepped the black battalions, their women-folk raising the
usual shrill cry of jubilation, whilst the bands played the favourite
air, "O, dem Golden Slippers." Regimental bands do droll things
occasionally. I remember in the year of the Dongola Campaign and the
cholera visitation, 1896, a grim blunder made by a native battalion's
band. The serious surroundings of those days led me to say nothing of
the matter at that time. Military interments, in cholera cases, were
ordinarily made very early in the morning or late in the afternoon,
just before sunset. A popular native Egyptian officer fell a victim to
the epidemic one afternoon. The sun had but set when the funeral
party, headed by the full regimental band, were seen hastening towards
the cemetery, for there was no time to lose. The tune actually being
played was not the "Dead March in Saul" but "Up I came with my little
lot." When the gunboats started up the Nile for Wad Habeshi, towing
alongside barges and giassas, all the crafts crammed with men and
stores, more than one of the fellaheen battalions were regaled with
the full strains of "'E dunno were 'e are."
By the end of July the Egyptian cavalry--nine squadrons--under Colonel
Broadwood, with the camel corps under Major Tudway, the horse
artillery and one or two batteries, had been ferried across from
Dakhala to the west bank. On the 4th of August the whole of the
mounted force named, about 2000 strong, started to march along the
bank to Wad Habeshi. Going along the bank means, at high Nile, leading
the troops upon a course half to a full mile from the river so as to
avoid creeks and overflows and, at same time, secure the advantage of
moving upon the more open ground beyond the zone of cultivation, out
upon the edge of the bare desert. It was also early in August that the
last of the fourteen double-decked iron barges, designed for the
conveyance of troops, was finished at Dakhala. Except the surplus and
reserve stores everything was put to instant service. As good a march
in its way, if not better in some respects than that of the 5th
Egyptian battalion from Suakin to Berber, was the tramp of the 17th
Egyptian--also a fellaheen regiment--from Merawi to Dakhala. They
made a record rapid tramp, following the Nile, up to Dakhala.
At Dakhala I frequently saw and conversed with the Sirdar, Generals
Rundle and Gatacre, Colonels Wingate and Slatin Pasha. There seemed no
reason to doubt but that the Khalifa would remain at Omdurman and give
us a fight. Abdullah the Taaisha gave out as widely as he could that
he meant actual business and dying if necessary at the Mahdi's tomb.
His women-folk had not then been sent away, and that looked promising
for battle. We heard that he was building more stout walls and digging
numberless trenches for defence. Of ammunition for small arms and his
ordinary brass rifled guns we were told he had no lack. For the three
or four excellent batteries of Krupps he possessed he had but sixty
rounds per cannon--enough, with good common and shrapnel shell, had he
made right use of his means, to have made matters unpleasant for us
until our gunners and Maxims found the range. It was regarded as
doubtful whether he would be able to employ any of the machine guns in
the dervish armoury. Of all Gordon's "penny steamers" only one, it was
said, was serviceable, and she was kept under steam night and day at
Omdurman.
Though he kept a bold front, blustered, and promised his adherents no
end of good things, and told them that, as in 1884-85, it was God's
will to turn the English back at the eleventh hour, Khalifa Abdullah
was truly in a parlous state. With all the Sirdar's care, we could not
keep from the dervish leader the extent of our preparations or
forwardness for the advance. As usual, Sir Herbert Kitchener was well
ahead of the time planned for moving on. We learned that, bar
unforeseen accidents and delays, the whole of his army would be in
front of Omdurman in a little over one month from the 1st of August.
Two dates in September were given for the fall of that stronghold. It
turned out to be neither. Kordofan had become openly rebellious
against the Khalifa. A caravan of over 1140 people, with women,
children and cattle marching overland, had arrived from that remote
region at Korti in the Dongola province. The multitude, who were
accompanied by many influential sheikhs flying from Mahdist misrule,
sent a deputation to the Sirdar asking his assistance to take and hold
El Obeid. As if that were not enough in the way of shutting the door
behind the Khalifa, sheikhs came down from the Blue Nile provinces,
seeking protection. Help was given to them, and bodies of friendlies
were got together to seize Senaar and other important places. The Nile
was running very swift and full in August, the current moving at fully
six miles an hour past Dakhala. In July the Atbara, which had again
begun slowly to flow, suddenly rose, the muddy water roaring along in
a series of terraced wave-walls. Its 300-yards wide bed, where it
joined the Nile, was within a few minutes choked with the tawny flood
up to nearly the top of the 30-foot banks on either side. Bursting
into the Nile the sea of soup seemed to push its way in a well-defined
stream nearly across the 1200-yards broad bosom of the Father of
Waters.
The first half of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade arrived on
the 2nd of August at Dakhala, during a blustering dust-storm. For all
that, black and travel-stained, they were glad to detrain, and to plod
through the sand, and breast the laden atmosphere, in order to get
into camp hard by the Atbara. The following day the remainder of the
battalion marched in under somewhat pleasanter conditions. Everybody
turned out to cheer the smart, soldierlike detachments. On the 6th
inst. the first half of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards arrived,
and later on the remainder. The Sirdar and Generals Rundle and
Gatacre, and the staffs went to greet them. A finer and more stalwart
body of troops was never seen in the Soudan. Native opinion was more
than favourable respecting them, and I heard observations on all sides
that the Khalifa had no men he could set against them. The Sirdar and
General Gatacre also expressed themselves much pleased with the
appearance of the Grenadiers, who looked like seasoned soldiers and
came in without a sick man in their ranks.