CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST BATTALION.

1884-1885.

THE NILE EXPEDITION.

At the time of England’s armed intervention in Egypt in 1882, the

Khedive’s authority extended nominally far beyond the limits of the

province which Mahomet Ali had wrested from the Sublime Porte. The

founder of the Egyptian dynasty, not satisfied with fighting his

Suzerain the Sultan in Syria, had pushed armies up the Nile into

the heart of the Soudan, or country of the Blacks, a no-man’s land

which stretched from Wadi Halfa, the southern boundary of Egypt, to

the Great Lakes far beyond the equator. This region had no form of

government; its inhabitants were oppressed by Arab slave-hunters;

its condition was pitiable in the extreme. Mahomet Ali gradually

conquered every tribe in the Nile valley up to the junction of the

White and Blue Niles, where he built Khartoum, and thrust forward

outposts in every direction from the capital of his new dominions,

which was about a thousand miles south of Cairo. The country thus

annexed became known as the Egyptian Soudan, and extended from the

shore of the Red Sea to the western frontier of Kordofan; it was

about the size of France and Germany put together, and its population

in 1883 was estimated at fourteen millions of mixed breed, the

descendants of the aboriginal negroes and the Arabs who overran

the country early in the Mohammedan era. This blend had produced a

race possessing the outward characteristics and mental attributes

of the Arab, combined with the endurance and brute courage of the

Negro.[252] After anarchy such as had prevailed in the Soudan,

almost any form of government might have been expected to improve

the condition of the country; but in this respect Egyptian rule

completely failed. Taxation was heavy; extortion was the rule,

rather than the exception, and slave-hunting, with all its attendant

horrors, was not suppressed; indeed, thanks to the connivance of the

officials, who were virtually in partnership with the slave-dealers,

it so greatly increased that the country was rapidly becoming

depopulated, when in 1869, the pressure of British public opinion

compelled the Khedive to institute reforms in the administration,

and to appoint an Englishman, Sir Samuel Baker, as Governor-General

of the Equatorial provinces, which stretched from Khartoum to the

Great Lakes. Five years later Baker was succeeded by General (then

Colonel) Charles George Gordon, who held the post till 1879. Though

both accomplished much towards the establishment of better government

and the suppression of slave-hunting, their efforts were cramped

and thwarted by the officials at Cairo and at Khartoum, who were

naturally disinclined to lose the enormous profits they derived from

the trade in slaves. A country so mercilessly treated only needed a

leader to turn upon its oppressors, and in 1881, such a leader arose

in the Soudan. A prophecy had long been current among Mohammedans

that about this time a “Mahdi” would appear and convert the whole

world to the true faith, and of this prophecy a religious adventurer,

named Mohammed Ahmed, availed himself to the uttermost. He proclaimed

himself the Mahdi whose advent had been predicted, and announced that

as soon as the Soudan had joined his cause he would march on Egypt,

destroying all who opposed him, and convert the whole world to Islam.

Such was the spiritual part of his programme, carefully prepared

to rouse the fanaticism latent in every Mohammedan; the temporal

advantages he offered to his followers were universal equality and

community of goods. Although denounced as an impostor by the educated

Mussulmans, who probably regarded his socialistic propaganda with

misgivings, he rapidly gained a great following, and obtained several

successes over the Egyptian garrisons, which were at this time in a

wretched condition. The troops had not been paid for many months,

in some cases even for years: the soldiers were undrilled, their

officers incompetent to drill them: the loyalty of all ranks was as

doubtful as their courage. To stiffen this unpromising material,

several Englishmen in the service of Egypt were sent to Khartoum;

among them was Hicks Pasha, at one time an officer in the Indian

army, now the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Khedive’s

troops in the Soudan.

In September, 1883, Hicks, acting under the orders of the Egyptian

government, led an expedition into the depths of Kordofan, where the

Mahdi had retired to organise the tribesmen, from thirty to sixty

thousand strong, whom his recent victories had attracted to his

standard. Hicks commanded about 11,000 weakly and ill-fed men, of

whom many were so unwilling to be soldiers that to prevent desertion

they had to be sent up the Nile in chains. His artillery consisted of

thirty-six Krupp, Nordenfelt, and mountain guns, and his transport

was supplied by six thousand horses and camels. The whole of the

Egyptian troops were thoroughly out of heart; they were aware that

they were about to march into a country of which little was known

except that it was almost waterless, and that they would encounter

hordes of desperate and ruthless fanatics. As the men filed out of

Khartoum they were in floods of tears. The fate of such an army

may easily be imagined: on the 5th of November it was surprised by

the Mahdi with 40,000 of his followers, and cut to pieces, near El

Obeid in Kordofan.[253] Hicks and the other Europeans died fighting

dauntlessly to the last; the Egyptians allowed themselves to be

butchered almost without resistance: three hundred were given

quarter, only to become the slaves of the victors, into whose hands

passed the guns, much ammunition, thousands of rifles, and all

the transport animals. One man alone escaped to bring the news to

Khartoum. Yet so little was the importance of the Mahdist movement

appreciated by the English government that at the very time Hicks’s

column was being destroyed in Kordofan, Mr Gladstone was urging the

reduction of the British army of occupation in Egypt. When Hicks’s

fate became known in Cairo the situation grew very complicated. The

Cabinet in London, afraid of being drawn into armed intervention

in the Soudan, had persistently assumed an attitude of aloofness

on the subject of Hicks’s operations, and, affecting to ignore the

fact that Britain was virtually, though not officially, mistress in

Egypt, and that a word from her representative at Cairo, Lord Cromer

(then Sir Evelyn Baring), would have stopped the expedition, declined

all responsibility on the ground that it had been undertaken solely

on the authority of the Egyptian government. The annihilation of

Hicks’s army had placed Khartoum in a position of great danger: only

two thousand troops were left to man the four miles of earthworks

by which the town was ringed, and its communications with Cairo

and Suakim were seriously threatened. The generals in command of

the British army at Cairo admitted that, if the Mahdi advanced

on Khartoum, it would be impossible to hold it in its existing

condition, and that in all probability the whole valley of the Nile,

as far south as Wadi Halfa, would be lost to Egypt. Alarmed at the

crushing blow which had befallen him, and at the consequences likely

to follow it, the Khedive begged that British troops might be sent to

the Soudan, or, if these should not be forthcoming, that a contingent

of Turks might be imported to hold Khartoum. Our government refused

to move a single soldier to the Soudan, but had no objection to the

employment of a Turkish force to garrison Khartoum, provided that no

expense was thereby thrown upon the Egyptian Treasury. They, however,

advised Tewfik to abandon all territory south of Assouan, softening

the blow by the promise that England would defend not only Egypt

proper, but also the ports of the Red Sea against the Mahdists. To

this wholesale dismemberment of his dominions the Khedive demurred,

and again suggested a Turkish occupation of the Soudan, whereupon

England sternly replied that if the Egyptian ministers would not

carry out the evacuation of the Soudan they would have to make room

for Englishmen, ready to enforce her policy. The Khedive thereupon

withdrew his opposition, and agreed that the whole of the Soudan,

except the port of Suakim, should be abandoned to its fate. During

these negotiations the situation at Khartoum had become so serious

that the senior European officer there, in reporting that it would

be impossible to hold the town against the whole population of the

Soudan, which had now thrown in its lot with the Mahdi, urged that

immediate orders should be given for a withdrawal down the river. The

question next arose--who was to effect the withdrawal, not only of

the troops, but also of the officials, traders, and other members of

the civil army of occupation in the Soudan?

The English ministers then bethought themselves of General Gordon,

one of the most remarkable characters of the nineteenth century.

His career had been a strange and eventful one. After serving with

distinction as a Royal Engineer in the Crimea, the chances of

war carried him to the Far East where he played his part in the

Anglo-French expedition to China. When the object of the campaign

was accomplished, peace was signed with the Emperor of China, but

the end of the war found some of the most fertile provinces of the

Celestial Empire in the hands of great hordes of insurgents, with

whom the Chinese authorities were wholly unable to cope. Gordon

was lent to the Emperor to command a force of Chinamen, raised by

himself and officered by adventurers of mixed nationality. With a

rare combination of military talent and personal courage, readiness

to assume responsibility, power of influencing his subordinates, and

complete absence of self-seeking, he welded his unpromising material

into good soldiers, with whom he stormed many walled towns and won

battles innumerable against vastly superior numbers. After a long

struggle, in which his men earned the title of “the ever-victorious

army,” he completely crushed the rebels; and then, disbanding the

troops who had learned to look upon him as invincible, he returned

to Europe with the justly earned reputation of a born leader of men.

During his five years’ sojourn in the Soudan Gordon had acquired

great influence over its inhabitants. The fighting men had learned

to follow, the slave-hunters to fear him: the traders respected his

stern and evenhanded justice: all classes knew that his word, once

pledged, was never broken, and that his orders must be obeyed to the

letter. At a few hours’ notice, Gordon was sent to Egypt to secure

the retreat of the garrison of Khartoum and of the thousands of

civilians who would probably wish to accompany it, and also to effect

the evacuation of the remainder of the Soudan. For this enormous

task he was allowed one Staff officer, Colonel D. Stewart,[254] 11th

Hussars, with whom he reached Khartoum on February 18, 1884.

While Gordon was on his way up the Nile, the tide of war was setting

strongly against the Egyptians in the eastern Soudan, where a wing of

the Mahdi’s army was commanded by Osman Digna, an ex-slave dealer who

had been ruined by the capture of his _dhows_ by British cruisers.

Osman Digna had stormed several fortified towns and villages, held

by the Khedive as outposts round Suakim, and had cut to pieces

columns of Egyptian troops sent at various times to the relief of

the garrisons scattered throughout the district. Suakim itself was

threatened, and the ships of war then lying off the port landed

bluejackets and Marines for its protection, while Major-General Sir

Gerald Graham was sent from Cairo to reinforce them with 4000 British

troops. There were two sharp engagements at El-Teb (February 29)

and Tamai (March 13), in which Osman Digna fought with magnificent

courage, but sustained such heavy losses that his power for evil

appeared sufficiently diminished to warrant the withdrawal of the

British soldiers from the eastern Soudan.

While these events were taking place round Suakim, things were

going badly with Gordon at Khartoum, and though direct telegraphic

communication with him was cut off about a month after his arrival,

the news which reached Cairo showed that his position was becoming

one of considerable danger. In April, the Secretary of State for

War began to realise that it might become necessary to send an

expedition to rescue Gordon, and called upon Lord Wolseley for a

plan of campaign. In his reply Wolseley showed that Khartoum could

only be approached by the caravan roads converging on Berber from

the Red Sea or by the valley of the Nile, and strongly advocated

the latter route. He proposed to move the dismounted troops up the

river in boats, and after pointing out that Gordon’s supplies would

not permit him to hold Khartoum later than the 15th of November,

urged that immediate preparations should be made to meet possible

contingencies. For several months government took little action

beyond making inquiries about the track across the desert from Suakim

to Berber, and sending naval officers up the Nile to report whether

Lord Wolseley’s scheme was practicable. These officers reported

against it, and Sir F. C. A. Stephenson, the General commanding the

British troops in Egypt, agreed with their views. On the other hand,

a committee composed of three officers who had taken part in the Red

River expedition in Canada emphatically expressed their opinion that

Wolseley’s plan was perfectly feasible, and pointed out that the

naval objections to it were based on the assumption that steamers of

considerable size, and boats up to 40 tons burden would be required,

whereas the army only asked for whale-boats, which could be used at

any state of the Nile.

While these discussions were going on, the tide of Mahdism steadily

flowed northwards. To meet a possible attack upon Egypt proper, the

bulk of the Khedive’s army, then in process of reorganisation by

British officers, was hurried to Assouan, where it was strengthened

by English battalions; the Nile was patrolled by steamers manned

by the navy; and irregular levies of Bedouins, also commanded by

British officers, were pushed up the river into Dongola, the most

southern portion of the Egyptian dominions in which the authority of

the Khedive was still recognised. Dongola was ruled by a Mudir who,

though originally in sympathy with the Mahdi, had been won back by

golden arguments to the cause of his Suzerain. In the course of the

summer his territory was attacked; it was considered necessary to

help him with British bayonets, and the 1st battalion of the Royal

Sussex regiment was moved southwards from Assouan. On the 8th of

August, only eight days before the Royal Sussex reached the town of

Dongola, a vote of credit was obtained from the House of Commons to

cover the expense of sending troops to the assistance of the Mudir;

but though by this vote government definitely committed itself to

the Nile route, and therefore to the use of small boats, it was not

until the 12th that official sanction was given for the construction

of these craft. Four hundred were then ordered, and in a few days

the number was doubled. The boats were to carry twelve men with

their equipment, ammunition, and rations; to be suitable alike for

rowing, sailing before a wind, and tracking (_i.e._, being hauled up

stream from the bank), for ascending and descending rapids, and for

passing over shallow and rocky places in the river: to be as light

as possible, yet strong enough to be dragged over short stretches

of ground to avoid cataracts; and to be 32 feet in length, 6 feet

9 inches in breadth, and only 2 feet 6 inches in depth. The first

consignment reached Alexandria on September 22, the last on October

18, 1884.

It had not been proposed to employ Lord Wolseley in the expedition,

but on August 26, he was appointed to command the troops upon the

Nile. He reached Cairo on September 9, when there were actually in

Egypt, or on their way thither, a regiment of cavalry, one battery

of Royal Horse artillery, one of Royal Field artillery, one camel

battery of mountain guns, and two garrison batteries; four companies

of Royal Engineers, one of which was at Suakim; a battalion of

mounted infantry, 423 strong; and thirteen and a half battalions of

infantry--in all, nearly 11,000 officers and men, among whom were the

first battalion of the Royal Irish regiment. Not all these troops,

however, were available for the actual operations at Khartoum when

that far-distant goal should be approached. The garrisons of Cairo

and Alexandria absorbed four and a half battalions of infantry, a

squadron of cavalry, and all the artillery except the mountain guns.

Though the Egyptian army held the line of communication from Cairo

to Hannek, it was considered necessary to strengthen this section

with a British battalion, while to secure the Nile between Hannek and

Berber, at least five battalions would be required. Lord Wolseley

aimed at placing about 5400 men in line at Shendi, a place on the

river about 100 miles south of Berber, and the same distance to the

northward of Khartoum, and after making allowance for the inevitable

wastage of troops in an expedition such as he was to conduct, and

for the possibility that he might have to send part of his column on

a sudden dash across the desert, he asked the War Office to supply

him with eleven hundred more men, volunteers from regular regiments

at home, to be turned into “camelry”--_i.e._, infantry mounted upon

camels. The request was granted, and these reinforcements arrived in

time to reap a large share of the honours of the campaign.

Before any troops could be moved to Shendi, through a country from

which little or no food could be obtained, it was necessary to form

an advanced base as high up the river as possible, where stores of

all kinds were to be collected before the main body began to arrive

from Cairo. It was also necessary to establish along the line of

communication on the river a chain of intermediate depôts, from

which the troops would draw rations and thus preserve intact the

cargo of stores with which each whale-boat was to be freighted.

Korti was selected for the advanced base, and there, when the first

thousand miles of its journey from the sea was accomplished, the

expeditionary force was to effect its preliminary concentration.[255]

As far as Wadi Halfa, about 750 miles above Cairo, the navigation of

the Nile presents no great difficulties, and every available river

steamer and river boat was pressed into the service. But above Wadi

Halfa a formidable series of cataracts, or rapids as they should

more accurately be termed, proved fatal to so many of the native

craft that the transport of stores to the higher reaches had almost

entirely to be carried out by the whale-boats. It was not until the

1st of November that a sufficient quantity of supplies had been sent

up the river to warrant Lord Wolseley in moving the main body of his

infantry. Then as speedily as possible each corps was despatched

in turn on its journey southward. Towards the end of December the

first battalion of infantry reached Korti, where the camelry, who

had marched along the banks of the Nile, were beginning to assemble;

in about four weeks more the last regiments arrived, and by the

end of January the preliminary concentration had been successfully

accomplished.

* * * * *

While the second battalion was winning fresh honours for the regiment

at Tel-el-Kebir, the first battalion was in India. It was stationed

at Meerut in August, 1884, when the welcome order was received to

start for Egypt forthwith on active service. In high spirits at the

prospect of a campaign, all ranks worked with a will; by the 20th

the preparations were finished, and the Royal Irish, after a very

hot railway journey, embarked at Bombay on the 29th, and three weeks

later arrived at Cairo in magnificent order. They are described by an

officer who was then serving with the regiment--

“When the 1st battalion Royal Irish landed in Egypt in 1884, it

was, bar none, the finest battalion I have ever seen, both in

physique and in general appearance. Under Colonel M. MacGregor

they were considered to be the best dressed regiment in India,

and since his departure they had lived up to their reputation.

In this respect they presented a very marked contrast to many

of the battalions in Egypt, who were dressed in a very hideous

grey serge very similar to that worn by convicts, which was

worn apparently exactly as it had been issued from store. Their

physique was equally distinguishable from the Corps who had

lately arrived from home. The average service was (if I remember

right) about seven years, and the average height, taken from the

annual return prepared at Wady Halfa, was 5.7¾, and the chest

measurement was 38″. While we were at Cairo a gymkhana was held

at Gezireh, where one of the events was a tug-of-war open to

all troops in garrison. The Royal Garrison artillery for some

time past had invariably won this contest: so invincible were

they considered that no infantry regiments would compete against

them, and they used to take the prize on every occasion with a

‘walk-over.’ On the arrival of the Royal Irish, we determined to

enter our team, which had been practically unbeaten in India. On

the day of the gymkhana the R.G.A. expected to have another ‘walk

over,’ when to their surprise and to that of the spectators (we

had kept the fact dark that we intended to enter a team), ten

strapping Royal Irishmen, in jerseys of the regimental colours,

stepped out on to the ground. The gunners were so unprepared

for this that they hadn’t even taken the trouble to be suitably

dressed for a tug-of-war. So confident were they of beating all

comers that instead of the usual line they had arranged an open

ditch filled with water, across which the opposing teams had to

pull. It was not many minutes before the two leading gunners were

in the water, and the rest, to save themselves a ducking, had to

let go the rope!”

The Royal Irish were almost the last troops to leave lower Egypt; but

at length the long-expected order reached them, and on the evening

of November 12, 1884, they entrained for Assiut, the farthest point

to which the railway ran up the Nile. The marching-out state showed

a strength of seven hundred and forty-six officers and men.[256]

Next morning, after a journey of 229 miles, the Royal Irish arrived

at Assiut, and at once exchanged the train for the barges in which

they were to be towed 318 miles to Assouan, at the foot of the First

Cataract. The men were packed into four barges, in each of which a

subaltern was on duty for twenty-four hours at a time; the remainder

of the officers were divided among the steamers and a _dahabiah_.

“That night the halt was not sounded till 10 o’clock, when,” wrote

a young officer of the Royal Irish, “a nice job we had of it. Our

steamers did not keep together, so that we had to go along the bank

for about a mile in the dark, and draw rations for the next day, and

very ticklish work it was, as the path was quite close to the river

and bits of the bank were continually falling in.” Progress was slow,

for both barges and tugs occasionally ran on to sandbanks, and it was

not until November 24, that the flotilla, which had been joined by

the 2nd battalion, Royal West Kent regiment, reached its destination.

As the barges could not pass the rapids the Royal Irish landed,

and spent an unhappy day in the belief that they were to remain at

Assouan. They had been ordered to encamp, and some of the officers

were on their way to select the ground, when a tremendous roar of

cheers and Irish yells told them the battalion had received good

news; shortly afterwards a staff-officer informed them that they were

to proceed up the river forthwith, and after a short journey in the

railway turning the rapids, the Royal Irish re-embarked at Shellal,

this time in the sailing-boats or _dahabiahs_ in which the traffic

of the Nile from time immemorial has been carried on. The next stage

(210 miles) in the voyage was to Wadi Halfa, the frontier town of

Egypt, and the most southern point which Roman legions had occupied

in the valley of the Nile. Here a long stretch of rapids called the

Second Cataract barred the passage of all local craft at that time

of year, and the troops landed and went into camp, where owing to a

block on the line of communication the battalion was detained for

more than a fortnight. This halt was by no means a restful one, for

the fatigues were incessant, but some of the officers found time to

reconnoitre the nearest of the rapids through which they were about

to pass, and reported that a task awaited the XVIIIth as arduous in

its way as any that had fallen to the lot of the regiment during

the two centuries of its existence. The Second Cataract, like that

at Assouan, is turned by a line of railway thirty-three miles in

length, which ended at Gemai, where, in an improvised dockyard, the

whale-boats lay waiting for the Royal Irish. By December 16, the line

of communication was again clear, and the first detachment--B and E

companies under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Wray--were sent by rail

to Gemai, where they took possession of their “whalers,” and many

stores. When these were packed the flotilla started in single file,

and sometimes sailing, sometimes rowing (with many different strokes

and styles), worked up a smooth stretch of river till nightfall,

when the boats were tied up to the bank, and the crews disembarked

and pitched their camps. Next morning the detachment reached Sarras,

where the remainder of the stores were issued. Each whaler carried

the arms, ammunition, tents, and camp equipage of her crew, materials

for repairing any damage she might sustain on the voyage, and cases

containing a hundred days’ rations for twelve men. These cases were

not to be opened, but were to be delivered intact at the point of

concentration, the supplies for current use being drawn at the

various posts on the line of communication. By the time the whole of

the freight (about four tons) was on board the boats, the load of

boxes at stem and stern rose so high above the gunwales that the men

at the oars were half-hidden behind the high-piled cargoes.

Lord Wolseley had always attributed much of the success of the

little Red River expedition to the skill of the boatmen, or

_voyageurs_ who navigated his canoes over the waterways of Canada.

With some difficulty he induced the British government to sanction

the enrolment of a corps of Canadian boatmen for the much larger

expedition of 1884; nearly four hundred officers and men were

raised, many of whom proved themselves as valuable on the Nile as

their predecessors had been on the rivers of Ontario and Manitoba.

These _voyageurs_ joined the whalers at Sarras: they were placed in

charge of the actual handling of the boats, but, except as watermen,

they had no authority. The flotilla as a whole was in charge of the

regimental officers, who were distributed among the whalers, but in

every company many boats were necessarily commanded by sergeants and

even by corporals. In most cases the non-commissioned officers were

as ignorant of boat work as their men, and with their crews had to

learn by experience the use of oars and sails, the employment of

poles to prevent the whalers from being dashed against the rocks, and

the art of tracking. Even the best of the _voyageurs_, though experts

in other branches of boatmanship, knew nothing of sails, which

were not used in the navigation of the rivers with which they were

familiar. In the forenoon of December 18, B and E companies pushed

off from Sarras, followed by the remainder of the battalion, less G

company, which next day brought up the rear. Thus the whole battalion

was now afloat, engaged in a ceaseless struggle with the rapids of

the Nile, and greatly handicapped by want of _voyageurs_, of whom

the supply had run so short that instead of a couple of Canadians

being posted to each boat, as had been the case with the corps first

up the river, only two could now be allotted to each company of the

Royal Irish. The difficulties encountered, as will be seen, were

enormous, but the first battalion of the Royal Irish overcame them

with brilliant success, and made the passage up the river faster

than any other corps in the expeditionary force. In order to “get

the last ounce” of work out of his troops, Lord Wolseley appealed

to both the sporting and the patriotic instincts of his soldiers by

offering a prize of £100 to the non-commissioned officers and men of

the battalion which made the fastest run with the fewest accidents

from Sarras to Debbeh, and by promising that the winning corps should

be selected for the post of honour in the farther advance towards

Khartoum. The money prize was awarded to the Royal Irish, who thus

won the right to share in the hardships of the march across the

desert to Metemmeh. Before that march is described, some account

must be given of the portion of the Nile up which the Royal Irish

had to force their way before they could hope to strike a blow for

the relief of Gordon. For eighty miles above Sarras the river runs

through a wild and barren region known as Batn-el-Hájar or the

Womb of Rocks, of which the official historian gives the following

description:--

“After leaving Sarras the first serious obstacle to navigation

is the cataract of Semneh, the foot of which is reached after

an eleven miles’ pull against a smooth, swift current running

between high rocky banks. Then come ten miles of swifter-flowing

water, against which, however, with the help of a moderate

breeze, it is possible to proceed with the help of the track

lines. At the head of this rapid is the great ‘Gate of Semneh,’

a narrow gorge, between two rocky cliffs, partly blocked by two

islands about equi-distant from the shores and from each other.

Through the three passages thus formed the whole pent-up volume

of the Nile rushes as through a sluice-gate. Here the boats have

to be unloaded, and their cargoes, package by package, carried

for half a mile over the rocks and deposited near smooth water

above the cataract. Then the track lines are passed round the

rocks, and two or three boats’ crews manning one line, each boat

is in turn hauled by main force up the water slide and run in

opposite its cargo on the beach.

“For the next sixteen miles the course of the river is unimpeded

by any serious obstacle, still for every yard the current runs as

strong as the Thames in flood, on every side the basalt mountains

radiate their heat, and everywhere the sunken rocks lie in

wait for the unwary steersman. At the end of this distance the

cataract of Ambako is reached, a very different piece of water to

that of Semneh. At the latter spot an obstacle to navigation was

formed by the volume of the Nile being pent into a narrow gorge;

at Ambako the same effect is produced by a broad expanse of river

being choked by an innumerable mass of reefs and islets. At full

high Nile, when the lower rocks are buried deep beneath the

surface, the cataract is not a formidable one; but as the river

falls and reef after reef makes its appearance, the difficulties

of navigation increase, until at low Nile the cataract has become

impassable for the larger native craft, and is a grave source of

difficulty even to the buoyant English whalers.

“Here every means of propulsion has to be employed. At one moment

the whalers, under the lee of some islet, may be paddled gently

up a narrow lane of almost stagnant water. Then, as the shelter

of the rock is lost, though its crew pull for dear life, it is

carried back some hundreds of yards until a point of vantage is

reached near the shore. Next the track line is got out, and step

by step the boat is hauled round a projecting point by a treble

boat’s crew. Now a fresh breeze and a clear reach of moderate

water make it just possible to gain a few hundred yards by making

the very most of sails and oars; then a bit of shelving shore

is met with, along which good progress may be made by half the

crew tracking, while the remainder stay on board and use their

punt-poles. At length, by dint of perseverance, the five miles of

rapid are surmounted in twice as many hours of incessant labour,

and another eight miles of open water are entered on.”[257]

Though no two cataracts are exactly alike, their general features

are much the same, and therefore it is enough merely to mention

the others passed by the XVIIIth. Above the rapids of Ambako came

the cataract of Tanjur, which, though only two miles and a half

long, usually took the boats a whole day to ascend, and fifteen

miles higher up was another rapid, nearly as troublesome as that

of Semneh. This was succeeded by ten miles of smooth water running

between hills crowned with ruins, relics of a nation so ancient that

its very name has been forgotten. Then followed the cataract of

Dal, round which stores had to be carried for three or four miles

by hand; these rapids once passed, the boats entered a long reach

of calm but swift-running water 100 miles in length, at the head of

which two more cataracts, those of Kaiber[258] and Hannek, had to

be surmounted. From Hannek to Korti the navigation of the Nile was

fairly easy.

The record of the forty days spent by the battalion between Sarras

and Korti is one of unceasing toil. The Royal Irish worked like

galley slaves. From dawn to dark, in burning and daily increasing

heat, they rowed, and poled, and hauled the boats by ropes through

the easier portions of the rapids. In the more difficult places it

became necessary to lighten the whalers, and the crews had to unload

them partially or entirely and to transport the cargo across the

rocks, work the boats through the broken water, and then carefully

repack them, with the knowledge, acquired by bitter experience, that

an hour or two later the performance would have to be repeated.

Occasionally, to avoid some especially bad piece of river, the boats

had to be emptied, lifted out of the water, and hauled across country

on the rollers provided for the purpose. Sometimes a boat missed the

narrow passage among the rocks which barred her way, and was whirled

backwards down the current until the men on the banks, hanging on

to the drag ropes with their arms almost wrenched from the sockets,

succeeded in hauling her into slack water. Occasionally a whaler was

wrecked; nearly every day and sometimes several times in the day

one or more were injured by striking against submerged rocks, and

in default of professional boat-builders the officers had to repair

the damage themselves. Major-General (then Captain) Burton Forster’s

diary contains many references to his labours as a shipwright, and

a few are quoted almost at random, to show what “handy men” the

officers of the XVIIIth became in the expedition of 1884-85. “Found

Sergeant Evans’s boat again broken at a small rapid. Stopped, and put

in a plank about nine feet long, as the original one was cracked all

that distance.” ... “Got all the ten boats of my Company up rapids

by dark and beached them for repairs.” ... “Four-fifths of the keel

torn off Corporal ----’s boat, mended her.” The work went on for

seven days a-week; there was no rest on Sundays, or even on Christmas

day, the entry for which runs--“Divine service for Roman Catholics,

then drew boats up main rapids, kept moving, and unloaded in the

evening.” In less arduous circumstances the voyage up the Nile would

have proved a pleasant experience, for the scenery possesses a weird

beauty of its own, wholly unlike that of any other part of the world;

the climate is glorious, and the endless series of ruins which line

the banks interesting in the extreme. But the officers of the Royal

Irish had no time to admire scenery, or to study the archæology of

the ancient Egyptians. They had suddenly been turned into fresh-water

sailors; they had become jacks-of-all-trades--shipwrights, doctors,

dock labourers; they had to maintain discipline, to keep up _morale_,

and to cheer the men when under the strain of unceasing toil even

their buoyant spirits for a moment flagged.

An officer of the regiment thus records his reminiscences of the boat

work on the Nile--

“Greatcoats and nothing else was the favourite kit with the men

of my boat, who prided themselves on their dress and were anxious

to save one good suit of khaki in which, they said, they would

march into Khartoum. It was a handy costume when you stuck on a

sandbank or struck upon a rock, as you could be overboard in a

second to shove the boat off. Very often my men used to row in

their ‘birth-day suits’! Just before we started up the Nile I

had been transferred to a new company, and my skipper[259] left

the detailing of the crews of the boats to the Colour-Sergeant,

who took advantage of my youth and innocence (?) to put into my

boat ten of the biggest blackguards in the company, and a really

good corporal of the old stamp (Corporal George M‘Kee). Though I

was new to the company, my future boat’s crew were well known to

me by name and sight as being constant attenders at the Orderly

Room, so I thought a ‘few kind words’ would do them no harm, and

consequently informed them that I knew them well, but that we

were going to have no d----d nonsense in my boat, or out of it

they would go to sink or swim! A grin of amusement was all the

answer I got to my short speech.

“When we started off the Corporal and I were the only two men who

had ever handled an oar in their lives. Luckily the Corporal was

a good tough nut, and had been stroke in the regimental boat some

years previously when we were in Malta. That first day’s row is

still a nightmare to me. We left Sarras at 12 noon, the Corporal

and I doing the rowing, while the remainder did their best to

imitate us, but only succeeded for the most part in ‘catching

crabs.’ The current for the Nile was slight--but except quite

close in-shore it ran at about 3 miles an hour. Unfortunately

our Cox, never having handled a tiller before, kept alternately

running us out into the stream or into the banks. The distance

from Sarras to Gemai was only 12 or 14 miles, but we did not get

there till 8 P.M., and I thought we should never get there. I was

more dead-beat than I have ever been before or since, and once

I had thrown myself on to the sand when we eventually reached

Gemai, I could not have gone another yard. However, youth and a

sound sleep worked wonders, and next morning I was as fit as a

fiddle, and started loading up the food stuff--a job requiring a

lot of time and care, as each box had to be fitted into its place

like blocks in a Chinese puzzle. With the stores, we also took in

one or two Canadian _voyageurs_ per company. My company had two.

Regiments who had preceded us had had a _voyageur_ for each boat,

but a good many of them had become ‘fed up’ and had gone home or

to Hospital, and by the time the Royal Irish went up the river,

the supply only ran to about one or two for every 10 or 12 boats.

“I was given a French Canadian, and the company tool chest, and

told to bring up the rear--a pleasant task which meant I had to

go to the assistance of any boat in difficulties on a rock or

sandbank, come last into the night’s halting-place, and when

there sit up most of the night mending the ‘lame ducks’ of the

fleet. The actual mending did not take so long, as we soon learnt

to patch up holes and tears, but the repairs usually involved the

unloading of the boat, and fitting together the ‘Chinese puzzle’

of boxes in the dark was an operation that took two or three

hours.

“My Canadian was a very fine specimen of his class, and had

a flow of bad language--both French and English--that I have

seldom heard surpassed or even equalled. Owing to my being able

to talk a certain amount of French, we became very good friends,

and under his instruction I became an expert _voyageur_ both at

the helm and with the pole in the bows, and could have taken a

boat up any of the rapids. Though we were such good friends,

it did not prevent him ‘doing me in the eye.’ Each boat had a

box labelled ‘Medical comforts,’ which was on no account to be

opened. Very foolishly the authorities had a printed label on

the box showing its contents, which in addition to beef-tea,

arrowroot, &c., also consisted of 2 bottles of brandy and two of

port wine. It had been reported that no box of medical comforts

had reached its destination intact. I determined that my boat

should be the exception, so the box was put in the stern of the

boat, so that I could keep my eye on it during the day while I

pulled stroke, and at night I slept on it in the boat. Never did

it go out of my sight except at the portages, when my friend

George, the Canadian, volunteered to carry it for safety’s (?)

sake. I drew the line at carrying boxes at portages, and trusted

George. When, however, my box was examined on arrival at Korti,

though it appeared quite untouched, the liquor was all gone, the

arrowroot, &c., were, however, quite complete; George had no use

for _them_!

“It was marvellous how quickly the men took to rowing. In a few

days they were pulling powerful if not stylish oars, and they

certainly put their hearts and their backs into it. My crew of

blackguards were simply splendid, and we never had any difference

of opinion. On one occasion we came to a very stiff bit of

water, and I turned round and said, ‘Now, boys, we’ll have to

pull here,’ and the man behind--one of the biggest and sturdiest

scamps in the battalion, said, ‘Begorra, sir, we’ll pull to hell

wid you,’ and a voice from the bows added, ‘and out the other

side, sir.’

“The Nile sores were the things that troubled us most; any

scratches or in many cases ordinary rowing blisters, turned into

festering sores which nothing could cure so long as we remained

on the river. I took the skin off my ankle shoving the boat off a

rock, and tho’ I kept it perfectly clean, and put vaseline on it,

it would not heal. The strange thing was that once we got into

the desert, tho’ we could not wash, these sores all began to heal

at once.

“Other regiments suffered terribly from lice, but so far as I

know we had none in the Royal Irish. I certainly had none in my

company. I attribute this to the fact that our men were always

in the water to shove the boat off if she stuck on a sandbank or

rock, while I noticed other regiments seemed to dislike getting

into the water, and used to try to shove off a boat that stuck

with poles and oars, and much bad language. The day’s work did

not vary much: we awoke at the first streak of dawn--had some tea

or coffee and biscuit--bully beef if you cared for it, and then

used to sail if the wind was really strong--which to us seemed

very seldom,--to sail and row, if the wind was only moderate. If

there was no wind, or an adverse one, it was a case of rowing,

or towing if the bank was favourable, the latter being a quicker

mode of progression than rowing against the strong current. If

we had a really good sailing breeze, we didn’t like to waste

it, and had cold bully beef and biscuit at about midday as we

sailed along, but if we had had a tough morning’s row or two,

we used to halt for about an hour to have a hot meal. At about

sunset the leading boat of the company would halt for the night

at some suitable spot, and the others if possible closed up.

This often was not possible, owing to the numerous mishaps that

were always taking place from bumps on rocks and sandbanks. The

boats, when the Royal Irish took them over, had done several

trips already, and were for the most part in a pretty rotten

condition, and the materials for repairing them had run out, so

that we had to use any expedients such as biscuit tins, &c.,

to patch them up. I thought myself lucky if on arrival at the

night halting-place there was no damaged boat to mend, and that

in consequence I could get a full night’s sleep--such a splendid

sleep it was, too, under the clear sky of the Soudan winter!

The ordinary monotony of the journey was broken at places like

Dal, where one had to pull for four solid hours up a gigantic

mill-stream, sometimes only gaining a few feet after half an

hour’s pull, when one’s muscles felt as if they would crack. At

Dal we took out the rifles and ammunition and a few of the boxes

out of each boat, took a picked crew of eight men, and had two

half-breed Indians in the boat, one at the helm, the other in

the bows with a pole. It was most exciting work, and at first

the task looked an impossible one, but the skill with which the

_voyageurs_ took advantage of every back water, and shot past

the most dangerous-looking places was perfectly marvellous. Most

of us officers learnt the trick before we reached Korti, and

could have qualified as _voyageurs_. Amongst the _voyageurs_ I

should tell you, there were some who had not much claim to the

title, and hardly knew the stern of a boat from the bow. They

had come out for a picnic, but when they saw the Cataracts they

‘went sick’! One of the so-called _voyageurs_ was a man who had

been in the Royal Irish a short time before we went to Egypt.

He was a smart, plucky fellow, who soon learnt the tricks of

the trade, and by the time the regiment came up he was quite an

expert, and went by the name of ‘Dare-Devil Dick.’ Some of the

_voyageurs_ were an insubordinate lot, and gave a good deal of

trouble--especially in wanting to halt, and as they were not

subject to military law it was difficult to know what to do with

them on these occasions. One gentleman, however, met his match,

after he had been particularly abusive to an officer who was

well known in the service for his handiness with his fists. The

_voyageur_, amongst other things, said that he was not going

to obey any one’s orders, and that he was as good a man as any

officer, so the officer told his men to row ashore, which they

did; he then took off his coat and said, ‘You said you were as

good a man as I am, take off your coat and I’ll show you whether

you are or not.’ The Canadian looked at him for a moment, and

then said, quite quietly, ‘No, boss, I guess not.’ ‘All right,’

said the officer, ‘you will obey my orders in future, or out of

the boat you go, neck and crop.’ After that there was no further

trouble.

“Pipes, or rather a lack of pipes, were soon a matter of great

difficulty. The old soldier had not acquired the modern habit

of cigarette smoking, and clay pipes were practically the only

kind the men ever smoked. In the rough work of the Nile boat

the supply of these soon gave out, and in my boat after about

a week there was only one stump of a ‘dhudheen’ left amongst

the twelve of us. This was passed round, each man getting ‘two

or three draws and a spit’ out of it. I had started with three

or four briar pipes, but they all disappeared--appropriated,

I regret to say, by officers. As I did not care to share the

dirty little stump that did duty for a pipe in my boat, I had

to devise something as a substitute for my beloved briars. A

broken oar-handle for the bowl, a boat’s auger, and a hollow reed

for the stem soon provided me with the means of making quite a

serviceable article. As the ash of the oar got very charred, the

bowl had to be lined with a bit of biscuit tin. My patent was

soon copied, and in a few days, as far as my crew was concerned,

it was a case of ‘one man one pipe.’ My pipe did me yeoman’s

service till after the return of the battalion from Metemmeh,

when, amongst other luxuries in the shape of jam and sardines, an

enterprising Greek brought up a store of wooden pipes which he

sold at fabulous prices.”

The only amusement on the voyage was to watch the wild geese and

pelicans which abounded in some parts of the river, to look for

traces of the hippopotami, much disturbed by the long procession

of whale-boats through the upper part of the river, and to take

“pot-shots” at the crocodiles. The old ones were wary, and offered

but indifferent targets for the officers’ revolvers; the young ones,

less used to the ways of mankind, were slower in taking to the water.

One, indeed, remained so long on an overhanging bank that when a

party of the Royal Irish approached him his only means of escape was

by taking a header into the water, right over a man who was standing

on the edge of the river.

On the 23rd of January the leading boats reached Korti, where by the

27th the whole regiment was assembled, but not in the same strength

as it left Cairo. The hardships and fatigues of the unaccustomed life

had taken toll, and many men had been dropped at various hospitals

on the line of communication.[260] One soldier had been drowned in

the Nile, a fate which Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Shaw, V.C., nearly

shared. His boat was working close in-shore when a sudden fall of

earth and stones from the bank struck her gunwale, and threw him into

the swiftly running river. As soon as the dust had cleared away he

was seen struggling in the stream; instantly Orderly-Room Sergeant

Hanrahan and Colour-Sergeant Moylan plunged into the water, swam to

him, and held him up until all three were rescued. For this gallant

action the bronze medals of the Royal Humane Society were awarded to

these non-commissioned officers. The Royal Irish won great praise not

only for the short time in which they made the passage from Sarras,

but also for the excellent care they had taken of the stores with

which their boats were freighted, and Lord Wolseley’s thanks were

officially conveyed to them in a special general order dated the 4th

of February, 1885.

“The following battalions in the order given have completed the

journey from Sarras to Debbeh in the quickest time:--

1. The 1st Battalion Royal Irish.

2. The 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders.

3. The 1st Battalion Royal West Kent.

The 2nd Division Naval Brigade, the Royal Irish, and the Royal

West Kent have distinguished themselves by the care they have

taken of their boats. The division of the Naval Brigade and

Captain Forster’s Company of the Royal Irish handed in their

supplies at Korti complete, no case or package being either

damaged or missing. General Lord Wolseley congratulates the

men of the Royal Irish most heartily upon having won the small

prize which he offered to mark his personal appreciation of

the battalion which should accomplish the difficult journey of

about 370 miles in the shortest time. As they have been first on

the river, so he hopes they may be amongst the first to enter

Khartoum, and he feels assured that he can wish this old and

distinguished regiment nothing more thoroughly in accordance with

its own desires.

“It has been most gratifying to watch the manner in which all

the battalions have striven to reach at the earliest date this

point where the army was to concentrate, and Lord Wolseley

warmly thanks both officers and soldiers for the untiring spirit

shown by them in overcoming the many and serious obstacles to

navigation presented by the cataracts and rapids of the great

river. All alike have worked well and cheerfully under conditions

entailing considerable privation and continuous labour.

“The conduct of all ranks has been most creditable to the

army, and Lord Wolseley will not fail to bring the energy and

discipline that have been shown to the notice of Her Majesty the

Queen.

“EVELYN WOOD,

“_Chief of Staff_.”

In forwarding his cheque for £100 Lord Wolseley wrote as follows:--

“CAMP KORTI, THE SOUDAN,

“_11th March 1885_.

“DEAR COLONEL SHAW,--It is with the greatest pleasure that I send

you the enclosed cheque for £100, the prize won by your splendid

Battalion by having come up the Nile to Debbeh in boats in less

time than any other Regiment. Being an Irishman myself it is very

gratifying to feel that my small prize has been carried off by

my own countrymen.--Believe me to be, dear Col. Shaw, very truly

yours, WOLSELEY.”

The general situation, as far as it was known when the XVIIIth

reached Korti, was very gloomy. Khartoum was besieged on three

sides, and on Gordon now rested the entire burden of its defence. In

August he had sent his only fellow-countrymen, Lieutenant-Colonel D.

Stewart and Mr Power, the correspondent of ‘The Times,’ on a mission

down the river; their steamer had been wrecked, and they had been

treacherously murdered by Arabs who had offered them hospitality.

Thus with no officer whom he could trust, no friend in whom he could

confide, he was left alone to face the hordes of fanatics by whom

he was surrounded, while his men were suffering much from physical

privations, and from the mental depression produced by waiting in

vain for the British troops who, as their General had repeatedly

assured them, were coming to their help. The tone of Gordon’s latest

messages, brought by native runners to Lord Wolseley, showed that his

position was growing so desperate that the time for which Khartoum

could hold out must no longer be reckoned in months and weeks,

but in days and hours. A modification of the plan of campaign had

therefore become necessary. In the original scheme the point for the

second concentration of the relieving force was fixed at Shendi, a

town on the right bank of the Nile, faced on the opposite shore by

the villages of Metemmeh and Gubat. But the passage of a column of

boats over the four hundred miles of river between Korti and Shendi

would inevitably take several weeks. Hitherto the troops had only

been called upon to overcome natural difficulties: now they would

be in the enemy’s country, and while working up rapids at least

as troublesome as those already ascended, they would be exposed

at any moment to attack and consequent delay. Even if unmolested

on the lower reaches, they were committed to one serious military

operation, the capture of Berber, a town on the Nile a hundred miles

below Shendi; it commanded the river, and therefore must be seized

and occupied before the expedition could pass it on the voyage up

stream. From these various causes the column must necessarily move so

slowly that long before the first whaler could be expected to appear

off Shendi, Gordon might be overwhelmed, yet the Nile was the only

route by which a large body of troops with adequate supplies could be

placed within striking distance of Khartoum. For smaller detachments,

however, the river was not the only possible line of advance. A

glance at the map will show that the Nile in its windings between

Shendi and Korti forms two sides of a huge triangle, the third side

of which is marked by the camel track, 173 miles in length, linking

Korti with Metemmeh. This road crosses the Bayuda desert, a barren

waste of sand, dotted at rare intervals with wells for the most part

inadequate for the needs of any considerable number of animals and

men--yet in a dash across this desert lay the only hope of saving

Gordon.

Lord Wolseley determined to divide the force which remained available

for active operations after the safety of his line of communication

had been secured. To Major-General Earle he entrusted the “river

column,” a strong brigade of all arms, which, after capturing

Berber, was to establish an advanced base near Shendi. The camel

corps and various other troops were placed under the orders of

Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Stewart, who was to lead the “desert

column” across country to Metemmeh, and there establish an advanced

base. If the information he received there convinced him that

Khartoum was at the last gasp, he was to push forward at once with

the “camelry” to Gordon’s rescue, but if the danger did not seem

immediate he was to stand fast, and co-operate with Earle when

the river column had won its way to Shendi. If Stewart halted at

Metemmeh, his Intelligence officer, Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, was

to embark with a few picked men on the Egyptian steamers which were

known to be waiting on that part of the Nile to establish touch with

the British, push on towards Khartoum, and, if possible, communicate

with Gordon.

Though Lord Wolseley was intensely anxious to place Stewart’s column

within reach of Gordon, it was not until the end of December that the

preparations for the movement were completed. Among the innumerable

difficulties which confronted the commander of the expedition

two stood out pre-eminently. One was the probability, almost the

certainty, that at Metemmeh the desert column would find neither food

for themselves nor forage for their camels, and that a large amount

of bulky supplies must therefore accompany the troops. The other was

the fact that, although camels were the only means by which stores

could be carried across the desert, the number of these animals at

his disposal was inadequate, and could not be supplemented from local

sources, as the Mudir of Dongola had failed in his promise to obtain

a large quantity of them from his tribesmen. As enough camels could

not be collected to carry to Metemmeh in one trip the _personnel_

and supplies of the column, Wolseley decided to cross the Bayuda

desert by stages. To carry out this plan it was necessary, as a first

measure, to form a depôt between Korti and Metemmeh; and Gakdul,[261]

98 miles from Korti, was selected, as it was known that its two or

three natural reservoirs yielded a good supply of drinking water.

In addition to the stores which were to be left at Gakdul, and the

supplies for the march there and back, the camels had to carry not

only their own food, for the desert yielded but scanty grazing, but

also water for the whole column, as it was known that the wells

between Korti and Gakdul could not be depended upon. As the XVIIIth

a month later followed the track of this convoy, the details of

the march of Stewart’s “camelry” will show how remarkable were the

performances of the first battalion, when it crossed the desert on

foot. At 3 P.M. on December 30, 1884, the first convoy of 2206 camels

started, with an escort of about 1100 troops, the mounted infantry on

camels, the XIXth Hussars on their horses. With an interval of two

hours the column marched till 7.30 A.M. on the 31st, rested for eight

hours, then pushed on again, stopping at 8 P.M. for a short time

at the wells of Hambok, where a small quantity of very indifferent

water was obtained, and halted at 1.15 A.M. on January 1, 1885, at

the well of El Howeiya, which yielded no better water than that of

Hambok. At 8.30 A.M. the convoy was again in motion, and plodded on

till 1 P.M., rested for two hours and a half, and then pushed on

throughout the night and early morning until at 6.45 A.M. on the 2nd

it reached Gakdul, where there proved to be abundance of good water.

The ninety-eight miles from Korti had been covered in 63¾ hours, 32¾

hours of which had been spent in actual marching; but weary as the

troops were, no rest could be allowed them. The stores with which the

camels were loaded had to be unpacked and arranged in proper order;

the camels to be watered--a process which occupied the whole day,

and the post to be prepared for defence, for though from the absence

of formed bodies of the enemy it was clear that the march across the

desert had taken the Mahdists by surprise, their scouts had been seen

hovering in the distance.

Before the next stage in the advance to Metemmeh could be undertaken

the intermediate base had to be completely filled up with supplies,

and to bring these, Stewart started on the return journey to Korti

less than fourteen hours after he had reached Gakdul. He left behind

him a garrison of 422 officers and men to guard the wells, and

improve the arrangements for watering the troops and the camels; and

he dropped small parties at the minor water-holes to clean them to

the best of their ability. By noon on the 5th Stewart was back at

Korti; but though his men had not suffered from their exertions, his

camels had felt the strain. Tired by their long march up the Nile,

the animals were in poor condition when they left Korti; they had

been on short rations of food and water on the journey to and from

Gakdul, and though every effort had been made to bring more camels

from lower Egypt, the supply of fresh animals was quite inadequate,

and the rest of the work in the desert had to be done by beasts whose

strength and endurance was rapidly diminishing. On the 7th a second

convoy of 1000 camels left Korti: 100 were laden with small-arm

ammunition, 80 with medical stores, 30 with artillery stores, the

remainder with food supplies. This column reached Gakdul in safety,

and on its return passed Stewart, who on the 8th marched from Korti

with 1600 troops, about 300 natives (chiefly camel-drivers from

Aden), 2228 camels, and 155 horses.

The second phase of the desert march began on January 14, when

Stewart pushed southwards from Gakdul with 1802 officers and men,

three light pieces of artillery and a “Gardner” gun, 155 horses

belonging to the XIXth Hussars, 1700 riding and 1188 transport

camels. Two days later the XIXth Hussars came into contact with the

enemy near the wells of Abu Klea, where on the 17th the Mahdists,

after a very desperate fight, were defeated with a loss of about a

thousand killed. Our casualties were 9 officers and 65 other ranks

killed, 9 officers and 85 other ranks wounded. Struggling onwards

towards Metemmeh, the desert column again met the enemy on the 19th,

this time at Abu Kru, close to the river. The Arabs fought with as

much gallantry as at Abu Klea, but were again heavily defeated, and

fled leaving the ground covered with their dead. To us the cost of

this engagement was 1 officer and 22 other ranks killed, 8 officers

and 90 other ranks wounded; among the latter was Sir Herbert Stewart,

who eventually succumbed to his injuries. When he fell, Colonel Sir

Charles Wilson succeeded to the command of the troops, though Captain

Lord Charles Beresford, R.N., in charge of the small Naval contingent

which accompanied the column, was actually the senior officer present.

On the 20th, Wilson occupied the village of Gubat, which is within

half a mile of the river; next day he threatened Metemmeh, two

miles farther inland, but before his attack had developed several

Egyptian steamers came in sight, and some hundreds of Gordon’s

Soudanese soldiers landed, bringing the news that a considerable body

of Mahdists were advancing. Wilson recalled his troops; fortified

himself at Gubat; reconnoitred in various directions, and after many

delays owing to the worn-out machinery of the river-boats, embarked

on the 24th with a handful of the Royal Sussex and a considerable

number of the Soudanese on his mission to Khartoum. It was not until

this date that he was able to send off a despatch to Lord Wolseley

describing the battle of the 19th and the movements which followed

it. This report reached Korti in the early morning of January 28, and

Wolseley at once decided to send Sir Redvers Buller to take command

of the desert column, and to reinforce it with infantry, who were not

to be carried on camels but to march on foot. Mindful of his promise

that the battalion which won his prize on the river should have

every opportunity of distinguishing itself on land, Lord Wolseley

selected the Royal Irish to accompany Sir Redvers, and ordered them

to move in detachments, the headquarters with A, B, and C companies

starting that evening, the remainder following as soon as possible.

In the afternoon of January 28, 1885, the battalion paraded for

Lord Wolseley’s inspection, dressed in the fighting kit devised for

them by a former commanding officer, Colonel M. J. R. MacGregor. It

consisted of a khaki-coloured frock and trousers of cotton drill,

a helmet covered with the same material, grey woollen putties,

a woollen shirt, socks, and ammunition boots; spine protectors,

cholera belts, and drawers had been issued, but were not in general

use among the rank and file; all hands carried haversacks, wooden

water-bottles, and rolled greatcoats. The officers wore “Sam Browne”

belts, which supported their swords and field-glasses, revolvers

and cartridge-pouches; the non-commissioned officers and men were

equipped with braces and waistbelts, pouches containing seventy

rounds of ammunition, three-edged bayonets (longer than those in

use at the present day), and Martini-Henry rifles. As in previous

campaigns it had been discovered that when these rifles were fired

fast, the barrels became so hot that it was almost impossible to

grasp them, they were fitted with leather hand-guards, tightly laced

round the stock and barrel behind the back-sight, to enable the men

to get a firm grip of their weapons. The remainder of the campaigning

kit was carried on transport camels; to every ten men was allotted

one animal, which was loaded with their camp kettles, a blanket and a

waterproof sheet apiece, and one or two sea-kit bags, each of which

contained sets of the following articles, viz.: one flannel shirt,

two pairs of socks, a tin of grease, a canteen, a towel, soap, and a

hold-all, complete. The troops were allowed no tents.

When Lord Wolseley rode on to the parade ground he was saluted by as

fine a body of soldiers as he had ever seen. By a process of natural

selection the weakly men had been weeded out in the voyage up the

river, and only those of perfect constitution had reached Korti.

Thanks to the varied forms of exercise they had taken since they left

Cairo, the soldiers drawn up before him were in rude health and fit

to go anywhere and do anything. After he had warmly praised their

appearance, which he described as “hard, lean, and long-legged,” and

informed them that to the regiment would probably be awarded the

prize for the race from Sarras to Debbeh, he warned the Royal Irish

that very hard work awaited them in the Bayuda desert. Before they

could reach Gakdul they would have to make six marches, each sixteen

miles long, in a country so dry that they must not count on receiving

more than half a gallon of water a-day, a ration which they must make

do for drinking, cooking, and washing! He wound up his speech by

telling the XVIIIth that he trusted soon to join it on the other side

of the desert, a hope, however, doomed to be frustrated by specific

orders from home desiring him to remain at Korti, the better to

direct the movements both of the desert and the river columns, the

latter of which had been set in motion on the 24th of January.

When the inspection was over the headquarter companies returned to

their preparations for the march. The skins containing water for

the journey were filled, rations drawn, camels taken down to the

river to drink and then loaded, and just after nightfall on January

28, 1885, the column started--as all ranks hoped and believed for

Khartoum. The first two or three stages of the journey across the

desert were by no means agreeable. The men of the XVIIIth had not

only to look after their own regimental camels and those of the large

convoy they were escorting to Gakdul, but to watch over the safety

of a number of slaughter cattle and to prevent the camel-drivers

from tapping the water-skins, which were not to be opened unless by

order of high authority. Though the Royal Irish had mastered the

ways of a whale-boat in the rapids, they were new to the tricks of

the camel-drivers, who, from idleness or dishonesty, often fastened

the loads so insecurely that in the night everything slipped off

the saddles and fell in a cascade upon the sand. The soldiers

had to pick up the boxes of stores and baggage which littered the

desert and re-pack them firmly; they had also to halt frequently to

enable weakly or lazy animals to keep up in their proper places;

but when, after two or three rude experiences, they had learned

how to cope with the camels and the natives who drove them, these

initial difficulties were overcome and the troops pushed sturdily

on towards Gakdul. For the greater part of the way the track ran

over great plains of yellow sand, which played havoc with the men’s

boots, already partly worn out by the _portages_ on the Nile; but

occasionally it crossed low round-topped ridges of black rock,

belts of coarse dark-green grass, and thick growths of low acacia

and mimosa trees. As the column marched at night and rested by day,

the officers were able to get some sport; a gazelle was bagged and

many sand-grouse were seen, though not hit, for the Martini-Henry

rifle hardly lends itself to shooting birds on the wing! The rations

consisted of a pound of ship’s biscuit and the same amount of

preserved salt beef, an ounce of tea and three of sugar, an ounce of

preserved vegetables, a quarter of an ounce of salt, and 1/320 of

a gallon of lime juice. The thirst produced by the combined effect

of the salt beef and the dry heat of the desert was great, and the

regular allowance of half a gallon of water was hardly sufficient

to quench it. General Forster’s diary records the joy with which

all hands greeted the occasional issue of a larger supply; an

additional quart rendered it possible to do a little cooking, while

an extra half gallon brought some form of washing within the range of

practical politics! On the half gallon issue the men could only spare

enough water to make tea; as their salt beef had been well cooked

before it was hermetically sealed in tin, they ate it cold; if water

enough could be obtained, the preserved vegetables were soaked and

boiled in the lid of a canteen.[262] To rest the camels, now breaking

down fast from the combined effects of too much work and too little

food and water, the convoy halted at the wells of El Howeyat for

twenty-four hours and then marched on to Gakdul. The headquarters of

the Royal Irish reached this post early on the 4th of February, and

next day were joined by four more companies (D, E, F, and G) of the

battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Wray. Unencumbered by the charge

of a large convoy, this detachment had covered the ninety-eight miles

between Korti and Gakdul in a hundred and eight hours--a very fine

performance for men who, though in perfect all-round training, had

done no marching for many weeks.

The journey across the desert had so far been uneventful. The

only exciting incident was the escapade of a lance-corporal, who

temporarily losing his reason, wandered into the desert, and was

not rescued till he had strayed twelve miles from the bivouac. A

few tribesmen, captured by the irregulars who guarded the lines of

communication, were the only enemies seen; they were wild-looking

savages, short but wiry, with fierce eyes gleaming under shocks of

matted hair, and armed with formidable spears more than five feet

in length. They did not form part of the Mahdi’s regular army, but

were local freebooters, more disposed to plunder than to fight. When

the Royal Irish were a few miles north of Gakdul they met messengers

hurrying to Korti with the news that Khartoum had fallen. On the 5th

they had comparative rest, but on the 6th they were kept hard at work

filling water-skins at the wells, ready for the next stage in their

advance--Gakdul to Abu Klea, a distance of fifty-two miles. While

thus employed they were joined by H company, which had been detained

at Korti when the second detachment moved forward. In their anxiety

to lose no chance of distinguishing themselves the company had made

a great march, winding up by covering twenty-eight miles on the last

day. Sir Redvers Buller, who had ridden part of the way from Korti

with the headquarter companies, did not allow H company to start with

the rest of the battalion when it marched on the 7th, but, mounting

them on camels, sent them on a day or two later. How the men liked

this new form of locomotion is not recorded, but it is probable that

many agreed with the sailor who, after his first ride, remarked, “My

camel is a queer beast. He’s been playing cup and ball with me all

the afternoon and only missed me twice!”

Hitherto only the precautions usual in ordinary warfare had been

taken on the march and in the bivouac, but now that the Royal Irish

were well in the enemy’s country and liable to attack at any moment,

the formation was adopted which recent experience had proved to be

best suited for fighting in the Soudan. Under the immediate escort

of one company, successive lines of camels, about forty abreast,

lumbered along in a loose column which, if necessary, could be closed

up into a solid mass. At one of the front angles of the column of

camels were four companies; at the opposite rear angle was the

remainder of the battalion, both marching in column or half-column

of companies, ready to form square at a moment’s notice. The animals

laden with the reserve of ammunition moved behind the leading

companies into whose square they were to be received in case of

danger; those bearing the rations and the water-skins followed the

companies in rear, who were charged with their defence. If the enemy

attacked, each square could support the other with flanking fire,

and both could rake the ground over which spearmen would have to

pass in order to close on the camels with the cold steel. At every

halt square was formed, and at night the bivouacs were surrounded

with _zaribas_--walls of stone, boxes of stores, saddles or mimosa

bushes, anything, in short, which would serve to break a sudden rush

of the Mahdi’s followers.

The column, however, was not attacked, and notwithstanding the

cumbrous formation in which the Royal Irish moved they got over

the ground fast, and on one occasion marched twenty-four miles in

twenty-five hours and a quarter, coming in fairly fresh, alert, and

fit for outpost duty. They reached Abu Klea on the morning of the

12th, passing close to the battlefield of January 17, still covered

with dead bodies, for though the Mahdists had buried their chiefs,

the rank and file remained where they had fallen. Two companies,

C and E, were dropped at the wells to strengthen the garrison of

the post; the remainder of the battalion, after a few hours’ rest,

started for Gubat, where they arrived next day after a march of

twenty-one miles, “swinging into bivouac,” as Sir Redvers Buller

reported, “as cheerily as if they had been going to a field-day at

Aldershot.” The troops of the desert column received the XVIIIth with

great enthusiasm, turning out to a man to cheer it into camp. Among

them were the soldiers who had accompanied Wilson in his abortive

attempt to rescue Gordon from Khartoum, and who had just struggled

back to Gubat after a series of adventures, remarkable even in the

annals of the British army. In two tiny steamers, manned by natives

of very doubtful loyalty, they had laboriously passed through the

long and dangerous series of rapids known as the Sixth Cataract,

and after running the gauntlet of the enemy’s guns and rifles, had

arrived off Khartoum--to find that barely thirty-six hours earlier

the town had been captured by the Mahdi, into whose hands Gordon,

if he was still alive, had undoubtedly fallen. Wilson realised that

his mission had failed, and with a heavy heart ordered his steamers

to retire down the river. The retreat was conducted in circumstances

as unpropitious as can be imagined; the native crews, excited at the

defeat of the Christian General, were almost mutinous; the Soudanese,

by far the majority of the fighting men on board, were stupefied

by the knowledge that their wives and children were in the Mahdi’s

clutches; every hour the dangers of navigation increased, for the

Nile was sinking fast, and in one night dropped no less than three

feet. But in spite of all difficulties Wilson made good progress

down stream until his steamers, one after the other, were wrecked by

the treachery of the Arab pilots. Landing his troops on an island he

entrenched himself, and succeeded in informing the British at Gubat

of his desperate plight. The sailors at once manned one of the river

boats and fought their way up the Nile in time to save Wilson and his

comrades from the destruction which threatened to overwhelm them.

On his way to Gubat, Buller had received a despatch from Lord

Wolseley written after the news of the fall of Khartoum had reached

headquarters, but before the rescue of Wilson’s detachment had been

reported at Korti. His orders were to ensure the safety of Wilson and

his men; to send all sick and wounded back to Korti; to make every

preparation for the evacuation of Gubat, and if he considered it

necessary, to fall back to Abu Klea or even to Gakdul. When Buller

reached Gubat the situation was full of difficulty. Wilson indeed

was safe, but within two miles of the bivouac was the strongly built

village of Metemmeh, which we had threatened but not seriously

attacked. It was held by two thousand of the enemy, almost delirious

with joy at their victory at Khartoum; the Intelligence officers had

ascertained that three or four thousand Mahdists, well provided with

rifles, guns, and ammunition would shortly reinforce Metemmeh, and

as there was nothing now to detain the Mahdi before Khartoum, his

main army might also have to be reckoned with. The supplies of the

desert column were running short: at Gubat there were only rations

for twelve days, and the depôt at Abu Klea contained but a similar

quantity. Worse than all, the transport was breaking down rapidly;

“the camels,” Buller reported, “are emaciated, and their carrying

power small. Indeed I do not think we have camels enough to get this

force out at one go.” After a few hours’ deliberation he reluctantly

decided to retire, and began his preparations, fortunately unhindered

by the enemy who circled round the bivouac without attempting to

close in upon it. Early on the morning of the 13th of February the

sick and wounded were sent off, the convalescents on camels, the

worst cases on stretchers carried by Gordon’s Soudanese. The convoy

was escorted by part of the camel corps and three companies of the

Royal Irish, and when all danger of an attack seemed over, the

detachment was ordered to rejoin the main body of the battalion. Just

as the three companies reached the bivouac a Hussar orderly dashed

into the lines to report that eight or nine miles off the convoy was

surrounded by a large number of the enemy, and was in great peril.

Colonel Shaw and half a battalion of the XVIIIth hurried off to the

rescue, but to their deep disgust did not come into action. The

Mahdists had surrounded the convoy on three sides and were pouring

in a fairly well directed fire when a detachment of camelry, on the

way from Abu Klea to Gubat, suddenly struck the enemy on the flank

just as the Royal Irish began to come in sight. The Arabs did not

await Shaw’s attack and retired, leaving the convoy free to go on

to Abu Klea, which it reached without further incident. Shaw’s half

battalion did not accompany the sick, but was ordered back to Gubat,

where the troops spent the night in destroying stores which could not

be carried away and throwing into the Nile boxes of ammunition for

which there was no transport. As day broke on the 14th, the column,

1700 strong, was set in motion. With the exception of a few of the

XIXth Hussars whose horses were still serviceable, all arms and

all ranks trudged over the desert on foot. The post of honour, the

command of the rear-guard, was entrusted to Colonel Shaw, who covered

the retreat with the Royal Irish, two guns, a detachment of the XIXth

Hussars, and three hundred of Gordon’s Soudanese. A few of the enemy

followed, but when Buller halted and offered battle the Mahdists

drew off, and by midday on the 15th the column was in bivouac at

Abu Klea. The men had not suffered much on the march, though the

boots were beginning to fall off their feet, but so many animals had

dropped from exhaustion that General Buller was forced to admit that

any active operations were entirely out of the question, until the

mounted corps were supplied with fresh camels, the transport camels

replaced, and the XIXth Hussars completely remounted. There was not

forage enough for the surviving animals, and it was evident that the

wells could not be relied upon to supply the whole of the troops now

concentrated around them. Buller accordingly decided to send back

to Gakdul most of the camelry, all spare camels, and nearly all the

XIXth Hussars, while with the remainder of his command he awaited

instructions at Abu Klea.

The two companies of the XVIIIth detached to garrison the post of

Abu Klea now rejoined headquarters, bringing with them a record of

excellent service performed in clearing the bush which surrounded the

wells, building _zaribas_, and similar useful though unshowy work.

Early on the 16th, the battalion was directed to entrench one of the

low hills which encircle the wells; just as the shelter trenches

were finished and occupied, and the men were eating a well-earned

meal, large numbers of the enemy appeared on ground commanding the

defences of the Royal Irish, and opened fire at about 1100 yards’

range. To meet this attack, which enfiladed some of the trenches,

fresh works had to be thrown up under continuous and sometimes very

heavy musketry. “The Gardner and the screw-guns gave the enemy a

little physic,” wrote an officer in his diary, “but the rebels kept

it up all night, and we expected an attack at any time. Next morning

they began in a desultory sort of way, but a few shells and a strong

infantry fire made them lie close. Finally a field-piece of theirs

came into action, but its shells fell short and dead. Two of our

7-pounders went out and fired a round or two, and the Mahdists then

disappeared. We had an easy night on the 17th, and only regretted

two things: one that we had not had a slap at them, the other that

we had not received the half pound of bread that was due to us as a

ration!” During this prolonged skirmish, in which there were many

“close shaves” from the flat-trajectoried Remington rifles used

by the enemy, Quartermaster and Honorary Lieutenant Jamieson and

thirteen other ranks were wounded.[263] In the column the total

casualties were three men killed, four officers and twenty-three

other ranks wounded. For the next few days the regiment was very busy

cutting down scrub and building redoubts--work with which the enemy’s

fire did not materially interfere, as it was delivered from a very

respectful distance.

When the untoward news of the fall of Khartoum reached England, the

country was profoundly moved. A great cry for vengeance arose, and

amidst a whirlwind of telegrams from the Cabinet, Lord Wolseley

recast his plans, and proposed that the towns of Abu Hamed and Berber

should be captured, and held during the summer as posts to cover

an advance in strength up the river in the cool season. Government

accepted the idea, and sent an expedition to Suakim to draw off to

the shores of the Red Sea part of the enemy who might otherwise

attack the troops echeloned along the Nile. But by the middle of

February it become evident that Wolseley’s scheme was too ambitious.

The river column, though successful in an engagement at Kirbekan, was

making slow progress up stream owing to the abnormally “low Nile.”

To enable this column to arrive at Berber with its cargo of stores

intact, the original plan had provided that it should be fed by

convoys across the desert of Korosko, but recent events at Khartoum

had roused the fanaticism of the tribesmen to such an extent that

it was very improbable this route would long remain open. A large

quantity of Earle’s biscuit had proved uneatable; the remainder would

only carry the column to Berber and back to Korti, and therefore none

could be left to ration the garrison of Berber when that place had

been taken. Wolseley thereupon proposed that the Royal Irish and part

of the camel corps should strike across the Bayuda desert and fall

upon Berber from the westward, but he was forced to abandon this idea

when he realised that the transport, without which it was impossible

to undertake the expedition to Berber, had completely given out, and

that the marching power of the troops was seriously crippled by the

condition of their boots.

“In view of all these conditions the Commander-in-Chief felt

that he was no longer justified in persevering with the combined

movement of the Desert and River columns on Berber, and he was

forced, reluctantly, to abandon all hope of taking that place

before the autumn. The intention to take Berber being given up,

the capture of Abu Hamed became unnecessary; it would only have

led to a useless waste of life, and have unnecessarily prolonged

the line of river to be defended during the summer months.

The retention of the Desert column in its exposed position in

the desert was equally without object. A concentration on the

Nile became the only course open to Lord Wolseley. Orders were

accordingly sent on the 20th February, directing the river

column to return ... and at the same time Sir Redvers Buller was

directed to return to Korti.”[264]

In obedience to this order the one thousand seven hundred and forty

effectives,[265] left to General Buller, made ready to march on the

evening of the 23rd of February after an exciting day. About 11

A.M. Captain Morgan, Royal Irish Regiment, from his outpost to the

south-east of the bivouac had signalled that masses of the enemy were

advancing towards Abu Klea. Later it was reported that the Mahdists,

between five and eight thousand strong, had halted two or three

miles from the wells. The situation was a serious one, but neither

the General nor his men were disturbed at the news: the packing was

carefully finished, the convoy of wounded sent off under a strong

escort, the wells filled up with thorny scrub and the many saddles

for which there were no camels left, and soon after sunset the

troops filed away in good order, leaving the Royal Irish to bring

up the rear. The camp fires were made up, the usual bugle calls

were sounded, and then in groups of twos and threes the men of the

XVIIIth silently collected at the appointed place and were formed

into a rear-guard. Whether the evacuation of the wells was unnoticed

by the enemy, or whether the Mahdists thought it wiser not to attack

the retiring column, is not known, but the fact remains that Buller

was not seriously molested in his retreat, of which Major-General

Burton Forster’s diary gives interesting details. “During the night

of the 23rd-24th many camels fell down and were left behind. Halts

were numerous, and we had a very hard and awkward march in the dim

moonlight through the grass and scrub till 11.30 P.M. The _rouse_

sounded at 4 A.M. (24th) and we started at 5, having come about 9

miles from Abu Klea. We marched till about 9.30, seeing only a few

of the enemy’s scouts in the afternoon, and halted about 18 miles

from Abu Klea. The vedettes fired at them and they disappeared. We

started again at 5 P.M., and marched on till midnight, rested on the

25th till 5 P.M., when we started again, halting at 9.30 P.M. after

doing 13 miles. Next morning we started at 6 A.M. and reached Gakdul

about noon.... The work has been stiff and hot, especially on a daily

ration of three-quarters of a gallon of water!... I think the march

of 56 miles in 64 hours is very creditable to Buller’s column.... The

men have been in their clothes without changing or washing from the

16th to the 26th, and it has told on them: they are not as fit about

the feet as we could wish. Some of the officers succeeded in changing

their socks once during the ten days, and were more comfortable in

consequence.”

An interesting account of the retreat is given in a letter written

from Gakdul on February 27, 1885, by Colonel B. J. C. Doran, C.B.,

then a subaltern in the first battalion, Royal Irish regiment.

“You will see by the address that we have commenced retracing

our steps towards Korti, we arrived here yesterday morning and

very thankful we all were to get in. The march back has been so

far anything but comfortable, and our march going up was child’s

play compared with this retreat, for of course then the regiment

was by itself in two detachments and could consequently move

pretty quickly having only a small amount of transport to hamper

it, but marching with the ‘Desert Column’ as it is called, is

quite another thing, besides having a large Hospital of sick and

wounded to take care of. We left Abu Klea on the 23rd in two

parties; the first consisting of the Hospitals and the whole

of the baggage, rations, &c., for the column escorted by some

mounted infantry started at 2 P.M. I went with this lot, as I

am acting Quartermaster now to the regiment. The second party

consisted of all the troops and did not start till 7 P.M.: they

had no baggage or transport to hinder them, so of course when

they started were able to catch us up, as they did about 8 or 9

miles out of Abu Klea where we halted and where a depôt of water

had been left; they got in about 1 A.M. We started off again at

daylight and marched till about 10 A.M., when the whole column

halted, pretty well done up; the water question all along has

been a very difficult affair. We were to rest here until 4 P.M.,

when we were again to start off, however just as everyone had

made themselves as comfortable as is possible on these occasions

under a blanket to keep off the sun and were just getting a

few winks of sleep, we were startled at hearing heavy firing

going on in our rear; it was at some distance but the sound of

cannon being fired was quite distinct, everyone was up like a

shot, and orders were given to get all baggage loaded ready to

move off at once. However, after half an hour’s excitement we

desisted, as it was discovered to be only about two men and a boy

(natives) amusing themselves--we presume to frighten us--with

some gunpowder in cases. To understand the cause of all this

alarm, you must know that ever since the night we were potted at

the natives still hovered around Abu Klea, and we only moved out

just in time. Had we stayed there another day, we should have

had a good fight, for just as the column I was with was about

to start, from one of the outlying posts on the neighbouring

hills it was signalled down that the enemy were seen advancing

from Metemmeh direction in thousands; this caused a good deal

of excitement; however, after coming within about 2 miles of

our advanced posts, they all halted and settled down for the

night. Meanwhile the column with sick and wounded got away and

were well clear of all the hills and in a fine open desert by

the time it was dark, and where we halted, as I said before, we

were joined by all the remainder of the garrison that night,

they having sneaked out under cover of the dusk. All the wells

we filled up and left fires burning so as to deceive the enemy.

I don’t suppose they found out we had gone until next morning,

and then pretty late, as they would not have approached the place

except very cautiously. It was a very nasty place to get out

of, as for about six miles the road or track runs in a valley

with commanding hills on both sides, and had the enemy made any

attempt to hold the ground at the head, where it emerges into the

desert, very few of us would have got out without scratches. Once

in the desert we did not mind how many came on us, so now you can

understand the commotion caused by the firing of cannon, as we

thought they must have found out and were following us. This of

course was almost impossible, as where they were encamped they

had only one or two wells which they must have dug, and they must

have wanted water, as they could not have got any since they left

the river at Metemmeh, and it would have taken them quite a day

to clear out the wells we had filled in at Abu Klea. In the first

24 hours after leaving Abu Klea we had done about 30 miles, not

bad going for a column on an allowance of water, in the desert

in fact. Everyone had to walk, except the sick and wounded,

because all the camels belonging to the camel corps and mounted

infantry had to be used for transport and baggage animals. There

were only just sufficient to bring us away, and nearly all of

them were completely played out before they commenced the march.

However, we struggled on somehow, and arrived here more dead than

alive. Thank goodness we are getting a day’s rest here, which

will enable the men to pull themselves together, get some decent

food and plenty of water to drink, and that good. If I had been

told a month ago that I should drink as filthy water as I have

done, day after day, and been very thankful to get it, I should

have laughed! The thickness of pea-soup was considered _good_:

sometimes, if it was thicker, then it might be a little bad,

but not to be thrown away. Considering all things, the desert

march has been _the_ most trying thing known in a campaign for

years. By the time we arrive at Korti, we shall have been away

five weeks or more. We shall not have so many difficulties to

contend with henceforward, as the next half will be much easier

and I doubt the enemy following us beyond this. Everything about

movements is kept a State secret here, and we don’t know what is

going to happen, except we move out of this to-morrow or next

day--they say to Merawi, to help the column gone up the River,

but I have my own idea that we are going straight to Korti,

though the Colonel told the officers on parade yesterday that

after a day’s rest here, we were to move towards Merawi. It

will be getting very hot here soon, and if we are to summer out

here, it would be advisable to try and build ourselves some sort

of shelter. However, I suppose when we get to Korti we shall

probably then know what government has settled to do about the

Soudan. I am sure if they only saw it, they would have no desire

ever to keep such a country!”

At Gakdul the Royal Irish had a comparatively pleasant rest. A

quantity of stores had recently arrived from Korti, and as there was

no means of carrying them back, the Commissariat distributed them

among the troops, who were regaled on jam, cheese, fresh bread, fresh

meat, vegetables, and other long-forgotten delicacies. The men had

time to change their clothes, there was enough water for washing,

and better than all, a great budget of letters from home awaited the

regiment. Some of the units of the column started at once for Korti,

but it was not until the 2nd of March that the battalion was warned

to start next day, an order which was very welcome, for the wells

had begun to give out, and “the water had become filled with living

animals, smelt, and was as fit to drink as a dirty duck pool!” From

the 5th to the 8th the Royal Irish halted at the wells of Megara,

where a successful foray of desert robbers upon the slaughter cattle

considerably reduced their rations of meat. Then they once more

pushed northward, this time in detachments, the last of which reached

Korti on the 14th. As Lord Wolseley rode out to welcome them he saw

men whom a civilian would have derided as tramps and scarecrows, but

in whom a soldier’s eye recognised troops of the finest quality.

Their uniforms hung in rags, patched where patching was possible with

any material that had come to hand. Their boots were a nightmare.

Their skins were the colour of mahogany, their faces seamed with the

lines which hunger and thirst, exposure to heat and cold, want of

sleep, and prolonged exertion stamp upon every soldier in a campaign.

Their stern eyes, their hard-set mouths, their steady march and proud

carriage all showed that their spirit and discipline were as high as

ever, and that the great fatigues of their marches in the desert had

in no way impaired the efficiency of the Royal Irish. On the 16th

Lord Wolseley inspected the battalion, warmly thanked all ranks for

the work they had done, and informed them that General Buller had

reported on them in the most favourable terms.

Among those who had done much towards keeping the _morale_ of the

XVIIIth at the high standard maintained throughout the Nile campaign

was the Roman Catholic chaplain, the Reverend Father Brindle, D.S.O.,

now Bishop of Nottingham, whose name even now is one to conjure with

in the Royal Irish regiment. After serving with the second battalion

in the war of 1882, he accompanied the first battalion throughout

the whole of the expedition up the Nile. His genial personality,

his devotion to duty, his coolness in danger, his indifference to

hardship, combined to give him a remarkable influence over the men,

which he exerted invariably in the highest interests of the Service.

The Royal Irish thoroughly enjoyed the comparative civilisation of

the headquarters camp. They were once more under canvas; they had an

inexhaustible supply of water; and they feasted their eyes, weary

from the glare of the Bayuda desert, upon the palms and acacias

growing on the narrow strip of cultivation which fringes both banks

of the Nile. But they were not allowed to rest there long. When

the rear-guard of the desert column returned to Korti, the British

government were still determined to avenge Gordon and to crush the

Mahdi’s power at Khartoum; and Lord Wolseley arranged to concentrate

the expeditionary force for the summer in cantonments along the Nile

near Korti. The XVIIIth was assigned to a movable column, commanded

by Brigadier-General Brackenbury, whose headquarters were at Debbeh,

with detachments in the neighbouring villages, one of which, Kurot,

was occupied by the Royal Irish, where they settled down, as they

thought for many months. Some of their huts were made of logs, grass

mats, and similar materials, bought from the natives and issued to

the troops; others were built of bricks, made out of the soil on the

banks of the river and dried in the sun. “The battalion,” writes an

officer who was present, “excelled at making the moulds for these

bricks, and a sergeant, Kelly, was the crack moulder.” The want of

straw, however, proved as serious a hindrance to the brick-making

of Wolseley’s troops as to the Israelites of old, for many thousand

bricks cracked and were wasted. But only a fortnight after the last

unit had reached its allotted post, Wolseley was warned by the

Cabinet that owing to the possibility of England being embroiled in

war elsewhere, the expedition to Khartoum might be abandoned, and on

the 11th of May he received orders to withdraw from the Soudan. He

obeyed; but as the General-in-Chief in Egypt, who had been studying

the local situation for many months, he strongly protested against

the new policy, pointing out that if we retreated the Mahdi’s power

would greatly increase, and that the British government would not

only have to reinforce the garrison of Egypt, but to fight for

the protection of that country. The difficulty of carrying out

the evacuation was greatly increased by the necessity of bringing

back about thirteen thousand natives, who, having thrown in their

lot with us, could not be abandoned to the tender mercies of the

Mahdists; but by dint of careful organisation and hard work the task

was accomplished. General Brackenbury’s command started on the 1st

of June in whale-boats for Abu Fatmeh, where three hundred men of

the XVIIIth, under Lieutenant-Colonel Wray, were landed, and after

marching some distance down the Nile rejoined the remainder of the

battalion. Though the difficulties were light compared to those of

the upward voyage, they were by no means insignificant, for the

_voyageurs_ had gone back to Canada, and the Royal Irish, who acted

as rear and baggage guard to the column, had much work in towing

and mending whale-boats, wrecked or damaged in shooting the rapids.

When the battalion reached Alexandria, it was joined by a strong

draft: a hundred and seventy-nine non-commissioned officers and men

from the second battalion at Malta had landed in January, of whom

fifty-eight had been fortunate enough to be sent to Suakim, where

they served as mounted infantry in the eastern Soudan. Thus by a

curious chance the Royal Irish were represented in the campaign of

1884-85 not only on the Nile, but also on the shores of the Red Sea,

where a young officer of the regiment, Lieutenant D. G. Gregorie,

who had already greatly distinguished himself while serving in the

Egyptian army, was awarded the fourth class of the order of the

Osmanieh.

[Illustration: MAP N^o. 8.

THE EGYPTIAN WAR

1882]

[Illustration: MAP N^o. 9.

THE NILE CAMPAIGN

1884-85

W. & A.K. Johnston Limited, Edinburgh & London.]

As a matter of historical interest it may be mentioned that Lord

Wolseley’s predictions proved singularly correct. Within six months

of our withdrawal from Dongola a large body of the enemy attempted

the invasion of Egypt, besieged for forty days a fort held by

British troops, and did not retire southwards until on December 30,

1885, they had been defeated at the battle of Ginniss. To meet this

incursion it was found necessary to hurry nearly seven thousand

British troops up the Nile, and to increase the garrison of Lower

Egypt by about three thousand men.

In despatches Lord Wolseley mentioned the following officers of

the Royal Irish: Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw, V.C.; Captain Guinness,

and Lieutenant B. J. C. Doran. Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw was awarded

the C.B.; Captain Guinness was promoted to a Brevet-Majority, and

Lieutenant B. J. C. Doran was noted for a Brevet-Majority on his

attaining the rank of Captain. The Egyptian medal and clasp for the

Nile, 1884-85, and the Khedive’s Star were issued to all ranks. In

1886, the regiment was permitted to add to its battle honours the

words, “Nile 1884-5,” in commemoration of the ascent of the River and

the operations in the Bayuda desert.

The first battalion, Royal Irish regiment embarked at Alexandria

on August 24, 1885, in the s.s. _Stirling Castle_, and arrived at

Plymouth on September 9.