DAKHALA CAMP: GOSSIP AND DUTY.
Dirt is the essence of savagery, and there is a superfluity of both in
the Soudan. I have no desperate wish so to describe the vileness of
the surroundings of the correspondents' camp at Dakhala that even
casual thinkers will sniff at it. The place was bad enough in all
conscience, and, mayhap, therein I have said all that is necessary. As
for the worry of our lives, squatted as we were in the least agreeable
quarter of the big rectangular fort, long will the memory of those
days and nights burden our existence. What a time I had on those sand
and dust heaps, where every puff of wind and every footfall raised
clouds of pulverised cosmos. For two weeks, amid the wretched scene,
hideous by night as by day, I persisted in existing. It was a huge pen
with men, horses, camels, donkeys, dogs and poultry hobnobbing amid a
daily wreckage of old provision tins, garbage of soiled forage and
stable-sweepings and whatnot. All that, with a temperature of 116
degrees to 120 degrees Fahr. in the shade, wore the temper and added
amazingly to the consumption of wet things. At the Grenadier Guards'
mess one sultry evening they consumed twenty-eight dozen of sodas, and
it was not a record night. Without giving anybody's secret away, I may
say I know a gentleman who could polish off three dozen at a sitting,
and unblushingly call for more. These are details of more interest to
teetotalers than to the general public. Yet, not to let the subject
pass without a word of caution to afflicted future travellers in the
Soudan, the inordinate use of undiluted mineral waters of native
manufacture is most dangerous to health.
We correspondents had to wink both eyes in much of our telegraphic
news from the front, for military reasons. The press censor was
Colonel Wingate, chief of the Intelligence Department. In his absence,
Major-General Rundle, chief of staff, usually acted. Personally,
either gentleman was all that could be desired. Both were alike ready
and courteous in the discharge of their at all times rather onerous
duty, giving frequent audience to the numerous contingent of eager
newsmen, garrulous and prodigal with pencil and pen. Some of the
new-comers to the business felt sorely hit, because they were
precluded from writing at large upon all subjects connected with the
campaign. The excision of their copy grieved and hurt them as much as
if they had been subjected to a real surgical amputation. Yet those
two officers but obeyed orders, for after all, and under every
circumstance, the Sirdar, as I am well aware, was the real censor. It
is perhaps fairly open to argument whether the course adopted in
dealing with correspondents' copy was wise or necessary in a war
against an ignorant and savage foe. There was, at least, one official
blunder which gave occasion for much annoyance, and ought to have been
promptly remedied, or better still, never committed. It was expected
of Colonel Wingate, the censor, that amid multifarious important
responsibilities as chief of the Intelligence branch he should find
time daily to peruse and correct tens of thousands of words, often
crabbedly written, in press messages. With the approach of the day of
battle, his own department taxed more and more his entire attention,
and side by side the correspondents' telegrams grew in length and
importance. The task of proper censorship under such conditions was
impossible for any human being to discharge adequately. On that
account the public interest suffered, for press matters were often
neither promptly nor fully despatched. As a rule, the correspondents
were left in blissful ignorance of what had been cut out of their
copy, as well as of the exact nature of the residuum transmitted.
Besides these grievances there was one of favouritism alleged, but of
that there is always more or less in every phase of life and
association. All told, it may be thought that the correspondents'
complaints were of no very serious character. That depends on how they
are looked at. I have no taste for cavilling or grumbling over events
that are past. Surely, however, there is a middle way somewhere to be
found between the absolutism of a general in the field, who may gag
the correspondents or treat them as camp followers, and the clear
right of the British public under our free institutions to have news
dealing with the progress of their arms rapidly transmitted home. I
am well aware of the grave responsibilities that hedge a
commander-in-chief, and the cruel injury that an unrestrained
non-combatant may do him by recklessly writing on subjects calculated
to jeopardise the success of a campaign and hazard countless lives and
fortunes. The latter is an remote possibility. A commander-in-chief
has to consider that any enemy worth his salt is usually kept informed
by spies and deserters, and press-men who are known and cognisant of
their duty are no more likely to betray secrets to their country's
enemies than any officer or soldier in the Queen's service. And
nowadays the private correspondence from troops in the field cannot be
suppressed, and it is often published. Commanders of armies will
either have to accept the presence of recognised writers, over whom
they can exercise some control, or instead stand powerless before a
dangerous flood of random army letters poured into the public press.
The case can be met with judgment and care--plus penalties where
deserved. I am bringing no charges here, but discussing a vexed and
withal important question. I am glad to say that during the Omdurman
Campaign there was no attempt, within my knowledge, of muzzling the
press. This does not bear upon the Fashoda incident, but that came
later.
Nasri Island as a base of concentration was, as I have intimated, a
blind. Although we correspondents were not permitted to go up the
river, or indeed move beyond the Atbara, until the Sirdar and
headquarters had started, yet we kept ourselves fully informed of all
that was happening at the front. There had been one or two little
skirmishes between bands of mounted dervishes and our wood-cutting
parties of Khedivial infantry. In these encounters our men had
generally the best of the fighting, and the Baggara horsemen
invariably retreated with a few empty saddles. In July Major-Generals
Hunter and Gatacre had, during a small reconnaissance, proceeded as
far up as Shabluka Cataract or Rapid on one of the gunboats. The
enemy, it was seen, were in no great strength there, and the seven
well-planned, thick-walled mud forts blocking the passage were weakly
held. Those two officers landed with a small body of troops and
surveyed a suitable camping site, at what they called Wad Hamid, but
which, in reality, was north of that place and close to Wad Habeshi.
The object was to find a spot easily accessible by river and land, and
with not too much bush about. At that season, the Nile having in many
places overflowed its lower borders, marshes extended for miles along
the ordinarily solid river banks. Wad Habeshi was merely a native
wood-cutting station at first, but little by little troops appeared on
the scene, and a large entrenched camp, with lines extending for
several miles, was duly formed. At the end of July two steamers, which
had made the perilous voyage up the Nile from the province of Dongola,
came in and made fast alongside the mud bars at Dakhala.
It was still early in August when all the four battalions of
Major-General Hon. N. G. Lyttelton's Second British Brigade reached
Dakhala. They were quartered in a cool and cleanly camp by the Atbara,
to the south-east of the fortified lines. The 21st Lancers also
arrived at Dakhala in due course. Major Williams' Field Battery, the
32nd R.A. of 15-pounders; Major Elmslie's 37th R.A., with the new
50-pounder Howitzers firing Lyddite shells; and Lieut. Weymouth's two
40-pounder Armstrong guns, besides other cannon and Maxims, were
likewise on time. Very smartly the batteries and Maxims were stowed
aboard native craft, which were taken in tow by gunboats to Wad Hamid.
Detachments of gunners accompanied the pieces and carriages, but the
majority of the artillerymen were ferried to the west bank, whence
they marched overland to the new camp. It was at Wad Habeshi that the
army was first actually marshalled as a concrete force, and forthwith
took the field. Not a moment was lost by day or night in moving men
and supplies onward. The little paddle steamer captured from the
dervishes during the 1896 Dongola Expedition, which had been repaired
and sent to Dakhala, was continually carrying troops and stores from
the east to the west bank. As the Nile was running at the rate of six
miles an hour in its wide bed, the "El Tahara," as the craft was
called, had to make a big circuit to effect a passage. The "El Tahara"
was one of the boats General Gordon built at Khartoum but never lived
to launch. As she was a new craft, the Mahdi changed her name, calling
her "The Maid," instead of "Khartoum," as it had been intended to dub
her. She was an excellent vessel, with fine engines much too powerful
for her frame.
[Illustration: WOOD STATION (EN ROUTE TO OMDURMAN).]
Both Surgeon-General Taylor, on behalf of the British division, and
Surgeon-Colonel Gallwey, for the Egyptian troops, completed their
arrangements for succouring the sick and wounded upon the march from
Shabluka to the attack upon Omdurman. Adequate provision was made for
field hospitals, floating hospitals and relief stations, for medical
officers, and attendants, with cradlets and stretchers, to follow each
military unit into action. For the British infantry it meant,
substantially, that behind each battalion a medical officer and two
non-commissioned officers should march, accompanied by six camels
bearing cacolets, and men with nine stretchers. A somewhat modified
scheme was got out for the cavalry and artillery, as well as for the
other Khedivial troops. In the anticipated action before Omdurman,
temporary operating stations were to be set up, out of ordinary
rifle-range, and native craft, which had been fitted up with cots,
were to be brought as near the scene as practicable to receive the
wounded.
An attempt made to lay a cable from Dakhala to the west bank was not
over successful. It was found that the great sag, caused by the
current, carried the cable down stream, so the whole length ran out
before the opposite bank was reached. The steamer "Melik" was the
telegraph ship, and paid the cable out from a wooden reel placed on
her stern quarter. A few days after the failure she was employed
picking up the wire, most of which was recovered by Captain Manifold,
R.E., who was the director of military telegraphs in the last as in
the three previous expeditions against the dervishes. The recovered
line was relaid across the Atbara, which is barely a third of the
width of the Nile. From the south bank of the Atbara two land lines
pass up the east shore of the Nile. Upon a lofty corresponding pair of
trestles an overhead wire was also hung across the smaller river. A
few miles south of Dakhala a cable had been laid to an island and
thence to the west bank. From the latter point an ordinary land wire
ran along the desert to Metemmeh. Later on it was laid to Omdurman.
The line was put down step by step as the troops advanced. Thus an
alternative system of telegraphic communication with Khartoum was
early provided for.
It stirred the blood of everybody in our dull camp to see detachment
after detachment of the second British brigade detrain. Most of us
turned out and like schoolboys followed the drums and fifes as they
played the troops to their camping-ground. A half-battalion of the
Grenadier Guards, led by Colonel Villiers-Hatton, arrived at Dakhala
on the 6th of August. Hale and strong the big fellows looked in their
campaigning khaki. "First-class fighting material," as Arabs and
negroes, who are by no means poor judges, were openly heard to confess
in their interchange of confidences. There is always much camp chaff
and yarning amongst "Tommies"--and their officers, too, for that
matter--at the expense of England's picked battalions. "Have you seen
the 'Queen's Company,' my man," asked a subaltern of the Grenadiers
one day of a private in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Now the "Queen's
Company" are all over six feet in stature, and there was a friendly
rivalry in grenadiership between them and certain Fusilier regiments.
The question was asked when the troops were marching over undulating
but rather bare ground where the tufted grass was little over knee
high. It happened the officer had been detached on other duty, and was
anxious to rejoin his command. "I think, sir," said the Northumbrian,
saluting respectfully, "that they have got lost in the long grass."
The subaltern looked unutterable things, but the "Tommy" held a
stoical face and said not a word more till the officer went off to
hunt anew for his men. For all the chaff, every one was glad to see
the Guards, and to speak of them as the Queen's soldiers. Of the
second brigade General Gatacre said that a better body of troops could
not be wished for by any general.
I rode out to several of the brigade field-days, or rather, mornings,
for there was plenty of drilling and field exercises for Lyttelton's
men. The brigade was repeatedly practised in attack formation against
imaginary bodies of dervishes, as well as at assaulting supposed
works. On more than one of these occasions the gallant Colonel of the
Guards, not having his charger up at that date, led his Grenadiers
afoot, and once, at any rate, was mounted on donkey-back.
Particularism gets lost in the desert. In the manoeuvres the troops
were usually led in line, the flanks being supported by two or three
companies in quarter column, and the centre having in rear a few
sections of companies ready to fill gaps. Save for a little noise in
passing orders, the result of a fast-becoming obsolete school of
training, even captious criticism could find no actual fault with
their work. Advancing across wadies and scaling knolls upon the
desert, the troops were instructed to open fire with ball cartridge.
The range given was 500 yards, and the ammunition used was the
tip-filed Lee-Metford bullets. As at the Atbara, without halting, the
line moved slowly on, the front rank firing as at a battue, each man
independently. There were a few section volleys tried, the soldiers
pausing for an instant to deliver their fire. Once or twice also, the
rear rank was closed up, and joined in the fusilade. One effect was to
paralyse the deer and birds within range. I noticed that the tip-filed
bullets did not usually spread, and that their man-stopping quality
was something of a myth. Even the dum-dum does not invariably "set up"
on striking an object. For the Omdurman Campaign a new hollow-nosed
bullet was issued for the Lee-Metfords. So far as I was able to
judge, it generally spread on hitting, and made a deadly wound,
tearing away bone and flesh at the point of exit.
On the 12th of August the 21st Lancers, together with camel and mule
transport animals, were crossed to the west bank in readiness for
marching to Wad Hamid. Saturday, the 13th August, was a very busy day
at Dakhala. On that date the Sirdar went by steamer to the front,
direct to Wad Habeshi. It was given out he was merely going on a
flying visit for inspection. There was renewed active drilling of
troops. Eight steamers that came down were reloaded and sent back with
troops and stores in the course of twenty-four hours. General Gatacre
went to Darmali, and there assisted in the embarkation of his old
brigade, Major-General A. Wauchope's. The task was effected within the
course of twelve hours, the Camerons, Seaforths, Lincolns and
Warwicks, with their kits and supplies, being densely packed upon the
steamers "Zafir," "Nazir," "Fatah," and the barges and giassas, which
these craft towed. Had the Thames Conservancy writs run on the Nile
there would have been terrible fines exacted for unlawful
overcrowding. On the 14th August these stern-wheelers, heavily laden
with Wauchope's men, steamed at a fast rate past the Atbara camp, on
their way south. These craft, the first of which took part in the 1896
Dongola Expedition, turned out to be really the most useful and
dependable of the whole Nile flotilla. They steamed remarkably well,
towed splendidly, and were, besides, good fighting craft. The three
Admiralty-designed twin-screw steamers, "Sheikh" "Sultan" and "Melik,"
were not as fast as had been expected; they could not tow any
reasonably big load, and, though they were stuffed with many
novelties, few of the innovations were of the least practical value.
They needed all their engine power to steam and when under weigh had
none to spare for driving the circular saws to cut firewood for fuel,
or to start the dynamos to work the search lights with which they were
fitted. Major Collinson, commanding the 4th Khedivial Brigade, left
Atbara camp for the front with the 17th and 18th Battalions, or half
his force, the 1st and 5th Battalions having preceded him some time
previously.