Chapter Sixteen.
Touch and Go!
Tired men cannot go on talking all night, even about the events of an exciting day, and one by one our friends rolled themselves up in their coats and went off to sleep. And how the unfortunates on sentry-go envied them! That was an infliction which Tantalus escaped, but it might well compare with those which have caused his name to be embodied in our language.
To feel that the lives of a number of other people as well as your own depend on your keeping extremely wide awake, when you are dead beat and have to fight against the strongest possible inclination to doze even as you walk about, is really no light trial of fortitude, though it is not reckoned amongst the hardships of campaigning. But if you are within sight of your sleeping comrades, and within hearing of their snores, it becomes doubly exasperating, and might really sour the temper if it were not for the consolatory reflection that another time you will be the happy sleeper, and one of the present performers on the nose will be listening to your efforts to play upon that organ.
It has been whispered that evil men when on sentry have been known to feel a grim delight in an alarm which has dissipated the slumber of their comfortable comrades, but we may surely hope that this is slanderous. However that may be, the slumbers of those who were not kept awake by the pain of wounds or by duty the night after El Teb were not disturbed, and next day the main body, after a guard had been left at the wells, went on to Tokar.
“Do you think they will fight?” asked Green of one of his seniors during a short halt.
“Sure to,” replied the other. “You saw for yourself what determined demons they are, and it is not likely that they will give up a place they have only just taken without striking a blow for it.”
“Do you think they will fight?” asked Tom Strachan of another, not in the hearing of the first oracle, who had moved away.
“Not they!” responded the second. “After such a licking as they got yesterday all the fight will be taken out of them.”
“Which shall we believe, Green?” said Tom presently.
“It is very puzzling,” replied the inquiring mind. “Suppose we wait and see before we make up our minds.”
“A Daniel come to judgment!” exclaimed Strachan. “A second Daniel! We will wait.”
“Hulloa! There’s Charley Halton!” as a smart young cavalry officer cantered past with a message, having delivered which he came to exchange greetings with his friends.
One of the most enviable of mortals was Halton, a lad who might be the model for either painter or poet in search of an ideal hero. Handsome, strong, active, acquiring proficiency in all games and athletic exercises almost instinctively, a horseman with the hands of a Chaloner, and the seat of a Land, endowed with a bright intelligence which seized the common sense of things, and comprehended the meaning of an order as well as its literal injunctions, and a happy disposition which made a trouble of nothing, he was a general favourite wherever he went. He was attached as a galloper—or bearer of orders—to the General’s staff, but, being employed to take a message the day before to his own regiment, he charged with them, and the officers of the Blankshire who knew him, and witnessed the charge from a distance, were anxious to know for certain what had occurred, the reports which had reached them being too contradictory for reliance.
“Well, Charley, did you eat them all yesterday?”
“Not quite; we have left a few for you. Eat them, by Jove! They were near eating us.”
“Why, you seemed to go through them grandly.”
“Yes, but it was like going through water, which closes on you as you go. The beggars lay flat, or crouched in holes, and cut at the horses as they passed, to hamstring or maim them; and good-bye to the poor fellow whose horse fell! We ought to have had lances, and it would have been a very different tale. But the troopers’ swords could not reach the beggars, who are as lithe as monkeys. If they had run it would have been easy to get a cut at them; so it would if they had stood up. But they were as cool as cucumbers, and dodged just at the right moment. Of course some were not quite so spry as others, and got cut down; it was a case of the survival of the fittest. What acrobats they would be in time if this game lasted long enough!
“But it was like a nightmare. You know when you have a dream that you are trying to kill something which won’t die; some beast of the eel persuasion. We went through them, cutting all we knew; re-formed; came back, doing ditto; through them a third time; and then there was no satisfaction worth calling such. The fellows were broken up indeed, and a good lot were sabred, but not so many as there ought to have been after undergoing one cutting up, let alone three. And the scattered individuals still showed fight. And we lost awfully; no wonder, for I will tell you what I saw.
“A man rode at an Arab who fired and missed him, and then seized his spear, with the apparent intention of meeting him as an infantry soldier should, according to Cocker. But when the horse was two yards from him he fell flat as a harlequin. The trooper leant over on the off side as low as he could and cut at the beggar, but could not reach him, and the moment he was past, the Arab jumped up and thrust his spear through him from behind. I never saw anything done so quickly in all my life; it was like magic.
“There was a clever old soldier who was not to be done that way; when he saw he could not get at his Arab, he slipped off his horse before you could say ‘knife,’ parried his spear-thrust, ran him through the body, and was up again like a shot. But it was heart-breaking business altogether; you should have seen the horses afterwards, cut about awfully, poor things; and we lost heavily in men too. The Colonel has had the dead Arabs’ spears collected, and armed his regiment with them; and if they get another chance, you will see much more satisfactory business, I expect. But I must be off.”
And off accordingly he went, his horse seeming pleased and proud to carry and obey him. And on went the brigade also towards Tokar.
Oracle number two proved the correct one; the enemy made no stand at the place, but streamed away at their approach, while the inhabitants came out to greet them with every demonstration of joy and gratitude.
Interpreters were few, and apt to be absorbed by senior officers, but it was gathered afterwards that the Tokarites were denouncing the Mahdi as a false prophet and heretic, whose soldiers had despoiled them of their goods, and only spared their lives on condition of their believing in him, and this condition they had thought it best to pretend to comply with, though their consciences rebuked them sorely for the pretended apostacy.
But though our friends of the First Blankshire could not understand all this, whatever officers of other corps may have done, the pantomime of the men, women, and children was unmistakable, and was only intended to express the most enthusiastic delight.
“I shall never make it out,” said Green. “Have we relieved the place after all, then?”
“Cannot say; we shall find out, perhaps in general orders.”
“Catch a newspaper correspondent; he will tell you all about it.”
“At any rate, the gratitude of the poor people is quite touching.”
“Not quite, thank goodness!” cried Fitzgerald; “at any rate so far as I am concerned; though a horrid old woman who cannot have washed for years, and who tainted the air with the rancid fat in her hair for yards round, tried to kiss me. But I dodged round the major’s horse, and left her to him. In my humble opinion, we want the square formation quite as much to meet our native friends as our enemies.”
Major Elmfoot got away from his demonstrative female, and rode up to the group.
“They seem very fond of us, sir,” said Stacy.
“Yes,” responded the major. “I wonder whether they went through the same performance when the Mahdi’s army arrived.”
“But they showed fight, and he took the place by storm, did he not, sir?”
“I really do not know; a spy said so. But the place does not look knocked about at all, and the people seem very jolly. I should not be surprised if the whole thing were a farce, and Tokar had not been besieged or taken at all.”
“Then you do not think they are genuine in their welcome, sir?”
“I do not say that; these people have shops of a sort, I believe, and a customer is a customer all the world over.”
The troops bivouacked outside Tokar, where nothing further occurred of any interest, and shortly afterwards they tramped back to the wells at El Teb, and so to Trinkitat, where they were re-embarked as quickly as might be, and steamed round to Suakim, which now became the base of operations.
And soon Trinkitat was entirely abandoned, and since no natives lived there (how could they when they had no fresh water?) the place ceased to be a place at all in any rational sense of the word.
You may have heard the old explanation of how a cannon is made: “you take a hole, and pour a lot of melted iron round it.” Well, Trinkitat was a hole, and the English store-houses tents, soldiers, horses, camels were poured round it, and when they were withdrawn, nothing but the hole remained. But Suakim was a considerable place, built of coral too, and very interesting in its way to some people. And what was of more consequence, there were many good wells close by, from which water could be obtained all the year round.
Suakim itself, as has been explained before, is built on an island, but the British camp was on the mainland, within the circuit of earthworks which protected the town and harbour. It was on the eighth of March that the First Blankshire were landed at this camp. The look of the houses in the town disappointed some of them now they were closer.
“They don’t look like coral at all,” said Tom Strachan. “If I had not been told I should have thought they were the ordinary sun-dried brick affairs whitewashed.”
“I vote we have a regular inspection of them on the first opportunity,” said Edwards, “and settle the matter once for all.”
“It would be kind to posterity,” replied Tom.
“If you have so much time to spare, which I very much doubt,” said MacBean, “you will employ it better in visiting a very pretty place and a curious. There is just a gap in the earthworks which protects Suakim, a regular breach as one may say, which has to be defended by two strong works, which the sailors have given the names of ships to—Euryalus and Carysfoot they call them. And why is the gap left? And why are the two forts made to defend it instead of filling it up? Just because the rains, which some don’t believe in, make a torrent in the proper season, and this is the watercourse, and everything which barred its passage would be swept into the sea.”
“I recant and apologise,” said Green. “The rain quite convinced me of its existence at Baker’s Fort, I promise you. But you know you sold me so often that I hardly knew what to believe.”
“I never practise upon anybody’s credulity in matters of that sort,” said the doctor. “If a young man likes to believe that the moon is made of green cheese, I may let him; but atmospheric and scientific facts are above being trifled with. Well, if you go through this gap, which is barely a mile off, you will find a very pretty place—the wells, and sycamore trees, and dates. Just the place to spend a happy day. And if you take a bottle or two of champagne, and a pâté de foie gras, I shall not mind if I make one of the party, and show you the objects of interest.”
But such a pic-nic was not destined to come off, nor was there even any opportunity given for testing the coral theory, for there was plenty of work to be done at the moment, and on the eleventh the intending pleasure-seekers started for Baker’s zereba at six o’clock in the evening.
Baker Pasha’s Egyptians, though they had not proved much good at fighting, and had paid the penalty of their cowardice by undergoing a massacre which made the world thrill with horror, were very useful to the avenging force which followed so quickly on their traces. The fort they had constructed near Trinkitat had done much to help the rapid and successful advance upon Tokar; and now the zereba they had made eight miles out from Suakim, and in the direction in which Osman Digna lay with his whole army, made a good first halting-place for the English troops. A zereba, it should be mentioned, is an enclosed space surrounded by thorn-covered bushes cut down and packed round it, with old packing-cases, or anything else which will afford cover to those inside. This one was particularly strong, being further protected by a mound of earth all round it.
When the force, which was the same as before, with the addition of two hundred Marines, and a mule battery of four nine-pounders, had gone some little way, night fell, but not darkness, for a bright moon lent them her rays. Not such a moon as we are accustomed to in these latitudes, but a large brilliant orb, by whose light small print might be easily read.
“You have got the best of it,” said MacBean, who rode up first to one friend amongst the officers and then to another, detailing information which he managed to pick up, he himself best knew how; but it was, as a rule, exceptionally correct. “The Highlanders, who marched out to the zereba yesterday in the heat, suffered awfully. There were five cases of sunstroke, and lots of other men had a narrow squeak of being bowled over too.”
“I can easily imagine it,” replied Major Elmfoot, “for it was hot enough in camp.”
“It is not exactly what you would call bracing to-night, even,” said Fitzgerald.
And, indeed, the air was very close, and the march over the loose sand fatiguing. But the men stepped out merrily, and joke and song lightened the way. There was an improvisatore in the Blankshire, whose comrades considered him a wonderful genius, though, as a matter of fact, his extempore effusions only consisted of taking some well-known song, and altering certain words or lines to suit a particular occasion.
But this was far more successful than original composition would have been, because it was so readily understood and caught up; and the man was really shrewd, and often hit on something appropriate.
He now trolled out in a clear, ringing voice, with every word distinct, a new version of “The Poacher”:—
“When I was bound apprentice in a village of Blanksheer,
I served my master truly for close upon a year;
But now I serves her Majesty, as you shall quickly hear,
For ’tis my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year.”
And then the chorus broke out far and wide:—
“For ’tis my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year.”
And the lads laughed at the aptness of the “shiny night,” for that was evident to the dullest capacity. Thus encouraged, he tried a second verse:—
“As the soldiers and the sailors was a marching to his lair,
Old Digna he was watching us, for him we didn’t care;
For the bayonet beats the spear when he rushes on our square,
And ’tis my delight by day or night to beat the Johnnies fair.”
Towards the end of the eight miles march indeed there was less singing and laughing, for throats were dry and legs weary. What, in eight miles and at night-time? Well, the next time you are staying at a sea side place, where there is plenty of sand, you try walking along it, not where it is firm, but higher up from the sea, where you sink over your ankles at every step; if you can borrow a rifle and a hundred rounds of ball cartridge and carry that too, you will be able to form a still more just opinion; but, even without that, I invite you to consider how many more miles of it you want when you have gone four. But if they were tired and thirsty they were full of spirit, and it would only have required the sight of an enemy to make them as lively as crickets again.
It was midnight when they arrived, and they bivouacked outside the zereba in the square formation, every man lying down in the place he would occupy if the force were attacked, so that if the alarm sounded, he had only to snatch up his rifle and rise to his feet, and he was ready for anything.
But they were not disturbed, and rested till noon on the 12th, when dinner was eaten, and after it, at 1 p.m., they started once more to find the foe. As you draw cover after cover to find a fox, so in the desert you try watering-places when you are seeking game of any kind, quadruped or biped. And thus information was obtained that Osman Digna had a camp where all his forces were massed at Tamai, a valley well supplied with the precious fluid, nine miles from the zereba.
Once more was theory knocked over by experience. If there is one thing upon which most people feel quite confident about with regard to Egypt and the surrounding country, it is that the atmosphere is always perfectly clear, so that objects are only hidden from the eye by intervening high ground or the curve of the earth. For, as you probably know, anything on a (so called) level surface like the sea may be visible if the atmosphere allows it for ten miles, to a man on the same plane the shore say; but beyond that distance it gets so far round the globe we inhabit as to be hidden. Of course the taller it is the longer the top of it can be seen, as you will often perceive a ship’s top masts after the hull and lower spars have vanished.
Or, on the other hand, the higher the ground you stand on the further round the earth’s curve you can see; so that a man living on the top of a high mountain has a longer day than one on a flat, since the sun rises earlier and sets later for him.
But it was neither high ground nor the dip of the horizon which bounded the view of those quitting the zereba, but a thick, grey, British haze, which swallowed up everything a thousand yards in front, and out of which the Arab hosts might pour at any moment. The order of advance was different on this occasion, two squares instead of one being formed, the right under General Buller, and the left being commanded by General Davis. The guns were dragged with ropes by men of the Naval Brigade—a tug of war with a vengeance. The haze being so thick would have made it difficult to go straight for the enemy’s position had the information been as uncertain as was sometimes the case, but happily it had been ascertained that if they took a south-west course they could not go far wrong, and the compass came to their aid.
The cavalry marched in rear of the square, with the exception of the scouts, who with the Mounted Infantry explored the ground in front, preventing the possibility of a surprise. Tramp, tramp, mile after mile, hour after hour, plodded the two brigades, with many a halt to enable the man-drawn guns to keep with them. But tedium and fatigue were thought nothing of. The man who would consider a five-mile walk without an object a frightful infliction would think nothing of ten with a gun in his hand, and the chance of game getting up every minute. It is the same with all sports. How far across country could you run alone for the mere sake of exercise? And how far in a paper-chase, with the hare to run down and other hounds to compete with? Think how this stimulating excitement must be intensified when there is an enemy in front of you certain to fight well, and make you do all you know to beat him. After awhile the haze grew thinner, and a range of hills loomed through it in the distance.
As the atmosphere grew clearer these became distinct, and were seen to be low, while a higher range rose above them beyond. On towards the higher ground slowly moved the two brigades, with a total front of from 400 to 500 yards, the scouts spread in a cloud before them, and these were now amongst the spurs of the lower hills.
Presently a couple of them came galloping back with the report that these were clear of the enemy, who were massed further behind, and were watching the English advance. And then a group of mounted infantry were seen returning at a slower pace.
“Look!” cried Strachan, whose eyes were remarkably good; “they have caught some natives.”
And sure enough the troopers could presently be distinguished, coming on in a semi-circle, driving before them a group of men who were unarmed, and declared themselves friendly, or at least no adherents of the Mahdi, Osman Digna, or any votaries of the new Mohammedan heresy. This might be true, but the officer with the scouts thought the general had better decide so knotty a point, and so they were thus brought before him, travelling perhaps a little quicker than they were accustomed to, but otherwise uninjured.
“That’s the way to run fellows in!” cried Tom, enthusiastically. “A fellow, you see, is bound to go straight when he has several rifles pointed at his head in cold blood. There goes the interpreter. I wish the colonel would just go up and hear what it is about, because he would tell the major, and the major would tell the captains loud enough for us poor subs to hear, perhaps.”
“The colonel knows his duty,” said Fitzgerald, “and does not intrude upon the general unless he is sent for.”
“I know he doesn’t, but I wish he did,” replied Tom. “However, we shall get it all out of old MacBean.”
And sure enough, soon after the captured natives had been pumped dry and dismissed, the doctor rode up.
“No fighting for you, my boys,” he said. “The Arabs won’t meet you this time, I expect, and you have had your walk for nothing. I expect that they see that the sun will lick us single-handed, and they need not take the trouble.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, at El Teb, you know, they kept their women and boys with them, and these carried hatchets to kill our wounded with after the fight.”
“That’s their notion of surgery,” said Tom, in a very audible aside.
“It goes more directly to its result than ours.”
“Wait till you come under my hands, you young monkey! You will sing a different song then.”
“I have no doubt you will hurt me more than Mrs Arab would, doctor; but then you would cure me, you know, and she wouldn’t.”
“Never mind that cheeky boy, MacBean,” said Fitzgerald. “Why won’t they fight now?”
“Because they have sent all their women and boys away, and that, the friendly natives say, is a sure sign.”
“Curious; it is just the other way on with other savage people, who send their families off when they do mean to fight.”
“But the Arabs are only half savages; and besides they are quite unlike other people. Why, their lucky day is Friday, and their unlucky day Wednesday.”
“Yes,” said Tom Strachan, “and Robinson Crusoe called his savage Friday, and these fellows calls their Prophet Tuesday.”
“Tuesday! What do you mean?” asked Major Elmfoot.
“Mardi is the French for Tuesday, is it not, sir?”
“Strachan, you are really too bad, to make such execrable puns in the middle of the desert.”
“That is it, sir? I thought even my poor flowers of speech might be welcome in such a barren waste!”
Soon after this the colonel was called up to the brigadier, and when he returned he communicated what he had been told to his officers. The low hills being found clear of the enemy, it was intended to occupy them at once, and then if possible to advance upon the camp and the wells, and carry that position before nightfall. But this depended on what daylight they had, for rather than risk being overtaken by darkness in an unfavourable position, it was determined to form a zereba and wait for the advance till next day.
“It is just four o’clock,” said Strachan, looking at his watch as he returned to his company; “and surely there must be a fair chance of carrying the wells before sunset, for I see a lot of the enemy on the hills beyond. Therefore I shall risk a drink,” and he put his water-bottle to his lips accordingly.
“Hurrah! So will I,” said Green.
“I have been fighting down the feeling of thirst for the last two hours. Do you know,” he added, after a refreshing and yet a tantalising irrigation of the mouth and throat, “I have been haunted by a sort of waking dream while plodding on in silence this afternoon. There was an old man who used to bring fruit and ginger-beer to the cricket-field at my school, and he has kept rising up in my memory so vividly that I could see every wrinkle in his face, and the strings which kept down the corks of his brown stone bottles as vividly as if they were before me.”
“I wish they were!” cried Tom. “By Jove, what a trade the man might drive if he could be transported here just now.”
“Oh! And I have often scorned that nectarial fluid,” groaned Edwards, “or only considered it as a tolerable ingredient of shandy—”
“Silence!” cried Strachan.
“Don’t utter that word, or I shall simply go mad. It is quite bad enough of the exasperating Green to allude to the homely pop, though one bore with it in consideration of the tender reminiscences of his childhood; but human endurance has its limits.”
Those who reckoned on carrying the wells that night were over sanguine; when the rising ground was reached the progress of the guns was very slow; indeed, it was wonderful how the sailors managed to drag them on at all.
The atmosphere had now for some time become perfectly clear; and when the infantry had surmounted the first hill they saw the broad valley of Tamai, and on the hills bounding it on the further side, corresponding with the somewhat lower range, where they stood, the enemy’s lines were plainly discernible.
There were multitudes on foot, and others mounted, some on camels, some on horseback. The brigades halted, and the scouts pushed to the front, to unmask the enemy’s position.
“Do you think we shall get on to-night, sir?” asked Major Elmfoot of the colonel.
“Not a chance of it,” replied the chief. “But let the men lie still and have a good rest before they begin making the zereba.”
So they did; even the youngest and most curious had learned by this time to husband their strength and snatch forty winks whenever they got a chance.
“They are at it!” cried Edwards presently, as crack! crack! was heard in front; and then a couple of volleys, followed by more single shots and more volleys again, and then, when the work seemed getting really hot, sudden silence. Some object had been obtained, but what it was exactly regimental officers could not know till they read all about it in the papers afterwards. However, the question of advancing that evening, which had before been answered practically, was now settled officially in the negative, and the order to make the zereba was issued. Mimosa and cactus trees, many of them seven feet high, grew thickly around, so there was no lack of material.
A position was chosen, protected on one side by a sand-hill, which made a natural rampart, and then parties were sent out to cut and bring in the cactus and mimosa bushes, and these were arranged round the space marked out, forming a prickly barrier. And at the same time the ground was cleared of cover where an enemy might lie concealed for from fifty to a hundred yards in every direction, and that was space sufficient to stop any number of Arabs rushing across it with steady rifle-fire. And it soon became evident that this was no mean advantage, for heads were seen popping above the nearest bushes, on the borders of the zone which had been cleared, and it was evident that directly the scouts were withdrawn the Arabs had followed up to the English position, and were now prowling and prying around it.
As the wells could not be taken that night, and the horses could not do without water, the cavalry retraced their steps, and rode back to Baker’s zereba, the point from which they had started in the morning. When they were gone the enemy entirely surrounded the zereba, which was like a ship in the midst of angry waves, hungry for her destruction. While daylight lasted the men inside watched Osman Digna’s seemingly innumerable soldiers dodging about, and when night fell the knowledge that they were there unseen, and might attack on all sides at any moment, was really calculated to try the nerves. For there is nothing more unpleasant than the idea of any one pouncing upon you suddenly in the dark. But the nerves of our friends were getting pretty well seasoned by this time. Only Green, who was very frank, observed to Strachan that it seemed very lonely now the cavalry had gone. Mr Tom, to tell the truth, had the same feeling of isolation, and even his high spirits were rather damped.
“I will tell you what is lonely if you like,” he said plaintively, “and that is my last meal: it wants a companion very much indeed, and I could find plenty of room for it, and for a gallon or two of water besides.”
“Yes, indeed,” replied Green; “if one had a good square meal well moistened, one would feel, I think, that even the enemy were a sort of company.”
But food and water had run very short, and some of the men were faint. The colonel made them a little speech; he was not an orator, but what he said was generally practical.
His remarks on the present occasion were to the following effect—
“We are short of rations, both liquid and solid, men; but you have plenty of cartridges, and the wells are but a mile and a half off, so that we only want daylight to get as much water as we please.”
They got a supply sooner than was expected, however, for at half-past nine there was a bustle, and the sentries challenged; and, after a brief parley, a string of camels was admitted into the zereba, with water and other necessaries on their backs. Major Cholmondeley Turner had brought them over from Baker’s zereba, and got them safely in clear of the Arabs. He belonged to the Egyptian Carrier Corps, and you may imagine how he was cheered.
The men lay down in lines two deep, leaving a space of twelve feet between the front rank and the hedge of the zereba. They wore their great coats and slept with their rifles in their hands, the officers being in rear. In the twelve foot space which was left the sentries patrolled, and there was no need to ingress the necessity of vigilance upon them; the known vicinity of the enemy put them sufficiently on the qui vive.
All, however, was quiet till an hour after midnight, when the sleepers were awakened by a tremendous fusillade, and a storm of bullets came rushing over the zereba. But as the men were lying down, or crouching under the hedge, only a few unfortunate animals were struck by the leaden shower.
To show, however, what absurd things men will do in a panic, an Egyptian camel driver jumped, in his fright, over the prickly hedge, and ran along it outside, exposed to the enemy’s bullets. These failed to strike him, but an English sentry inside naturally took him for an Arab trying to force an entrance, and shot him dead. The firing was still kept up by the enemy, and as some of the shots came lower, being sent through the hedges, the bivouac fires had to be put out, as their light evidently guided the Soudanese in their aim. The night was cold, and this was felt all the more after the heat of the day. And the men lay shivering, unable to sleep, and wishing for day.
As Strachan lay thus, wrapping himself round as closely as he could in his great coat, he heard a thud just in front of him, and the man lying there gave a gasp and straightened his limbs. Strachan rose and went to him, asking—
“Are you hit, my lad?” But there was no answer; he was quite dead.
This, however, was the only fatal effect of some four or five hours’ incessant firing, for the Arabs kept it up for the remainder of the night.
At six o’clock the sun rose, and the enemy no longer had it all their own way. A nine-pounder was run up to the zereba hedge, and pointed in the direction from which the fusillade was hottest, and on another side a Gardner was brought to bear on a bit of cover where the Arabs clustered thickly. Ere the sun was quite above the horizon the loud sharp report of the former cheered the hearts of those who had been so hemmed in and pestered, and a second or so after there was a second bang as the avenging shell burst right among the bushes a thousand yards off. At the same time the ger–r–er of the machine-gun told that its handle was turning, and its deadly missiles tearing through the light cover. The effect was immediate; the enemy cleared off like midges from a puff of tobacco smoke, and retired across the valley to their own lines.
At eight o’clock the troops issued from the zereba and advanced, as before, in two squares in echelon, as it is called, which means that one was in advance of the other, but not directly in front of it. If it were, and the force were attacked, you will easily see that the rear side of the leading square and the front side of the following square could not fire at anything between them without injuring one another. Or if they were on a level, side by side, it would be the same thing, the faces opposite could not use their rifles without firing into each other. But with one square a little in rear this danger is avoided, and each can support the other. Take a pencil and paper and draw two squares upon it if you do not see what I mean. Masses of the enemy could be seen crowning the hills in front and to the right, dark masses on the sides, distinct figures on the sky-line.
The route lay across dry water-courses, which were inconvenient for the square formation, the ranks being necessarily broken in descending and ascending the sides, so causing little delays while the men closed into their places again when clear. But they pressed steadily on, the Second Brigade leading. If the sun rose at six, why did not the troops march before eight? You may ask. Because the cavalry had to return from Baker’s zereba, where they had gone the night before, you may remember, to water their horses. These now came to the front and spread out skirmishing. They were soon engaged with the enemy, and the firing grew very hot, forcing the skirmishers to retire, while the Arab masses pressed on. The leading square now came to the edge of a large nullah or dry river-bed, sixty feet deep and two hundred yards wide, thickly strewn with boulders, and having larger masses of rock rising from its depth.
This nullah was full of Arabs, crowds of whom swarmed up also to the further bank, and from these a heavy fire was poured upon the square, the other sides of which were also assailed. The First Blankshire was in this brigade, but not on the side next the nullah, and the men were firing rather wildly. For the first time since he joined Tom Strachan saw his captain, Fitzgerald, in a rage.
“You confounded idiots!” he yelled to his men, “what’s the use of firing at them a mile off! What are you shooting at, Smith—a balloon? You are no use at all, Strachan; why don’t you make your section reserve their fire? Steady, men, steady!”
All the other officers were making similar efforts, but for a time it was no good. Bodies of Arabs kept sweeping round some seven hundred yards off, watching their chance for a dash, and the men would keep firing at them, and, what was worse, hurriedly, without a cool aim. Indeed a good aim was not to be had, for they were only dimly seen through the smoke. And it was this probably which bothered the men; the ground in front was rough, and might conceal enemies close to them; there were swarms in all directions, and they fired at those they got a glimpse of.
Neither was the distance anything like out of range, only recent experience had shown that it required very severe concentration of fire at the closest quarters to make any impression on these brave Soudanese, and the losses which can be inflicted at seven hundred yards are slight comparatively, especially if the aim is not very cool and deliberate.
“Cease firing!” at last shouted a superior officer, and the word being promptly echoed by all, and enforced by actually grasping the shoulders of the most excited and flurried men, it slackened at length, and there seemed to be a good prospect of the unsteadiness calming down; and after all, this burst of wild firing had only lasted about three minutes. The atmosphere, however, was heavy; there was not a breath of air stirring, and the smoke hung in so thick a pall overhead, that it was impossible to see what was going on.
“Steady!” cried our friend Tom, who really had not deserved his captain’s reproach, for he had been struggling all he knew to restrain his men’s fire, only they got out of hand with him as with everybody else for a minute.
“Wait till the smoke clears, unless they come out of it a yard from your muzzles. Not a shot at present, or ever without a steady aim.”
“That’s right,” shouted Major Elmfoot; “stick to that, Strachan. No more wild shooting, men. Ah!”
There is an infinite variety of expression in the various tones of the human voice, and that simple “All!” conveyed more than I can give you any idea of. There was surprise in it and dismay, but not a suspicion of panic; on the contrary, determination was clearly expressed. The accent of the exclamation indeed was so striking that Strachan turned as sharply as if he had been struck, and at the further corner of the square he saw white teeth, gleaming eyes, tangled black locks, dark naked forms, and glittering spearheads, and—British soldiers recoiling before them!
As the major uttered his cry, he crammed his spurs into his horse’s sides, and with one bound was among them, cutting and pointing like a trooper, and Tom found himself close to him, though whether he moved or the seething, struggling mass came upon him where he stood he did not quite know. One thing he felt sure of, that the situation was just as critical as it possibly could be. Careless, light-hearted lad as he was, he could not lead the life and pass through the scenes of the last few days without becoming familiar with the thought that every hour might very likely prove his last.
But that conviction, which would have been so terrible in cold blood, gave him little concern now; it was the feeling of being beaten which was such mental agony. What was his life, what was the life of any man, of a million of men, compared with defeat? At that moment he would have flung himself into the fire to secure victory for his side. I do not wish to make him out an exceptional hero, and he was not a fellow to brag, but it is certain that at that crisis he felt no fear whatever, no more than when having got hold of the ball in a football match at Harton, he had thought:
“I must have it between the goal posts, if I die for it!”
It has been explained before how he had attained a rare proficiency with his weapons; he had not fired his pistol yet, and he was as clear-headed and firm in nerve as man could be. While the chambers of his revolver were loaded he was in little danger from spearmen in front of him, for he parried the thrust with his sword, and shot the assailant through the head, and even an Arab is knocked out of time by that. But against a thrust in the side or the back no skill or coolness could defend him. And presently he was so jammed up by retreating soldiers that he could not use his arms, and then he was quite powerless for self-help.
It happened, by the best accounts, in this fashion. Covered by the dense smoke, the Arabs swarmed out of the nullah upon the face of the square on the edge of it. The foremost flung themselves on the bayonets; those behind pressing them on to them, the soldiers could not draw their weapons out, and found themselves hampered with dying foes, whose breast-bones were jammed against the muzzles of their rifles. If they drew back to release their weapons, the enemy took instantaneous advantage of the space yielded. When they strove to stand firm they were pushed bodily back by the dense mass surging upon them since the Soudanese in rear could push on with perfect impunity wherever the bayonets were sheathed in the bodies of the front rank. The sailors who manned the machine-guns at one corner were driven back by main force with the rest, but made a desperate effort to keep back the savages, while certain parts without which the guns were useless could be removed. They succeeded, but at the cost of many lives, and then back they had to go, leaving the guns, now happily harmless, in the enemy’s hands.
The confusion was frightful, the front face of the square being driven back upon the rear, and the sides jammed up with them. And then the whole tangled mass was forced slowly back, fighting its hardest. For there was no turning tail; the retreating soldiers kept their faces to the foe, and where they had their arms free delivered thrust for thrust. Marines and Highlanders fought back to back, and fought like bull-dogs. So did the Arabs for that matter; they lay tumbled over in hundreds, but others came on over their bodies. Seventy English were killed in a few minutes. Fighting thus the Second Brigade, now no longer a square, was pushed back nearly half a mile.
But now the charging Arabs came under the fire of the First Brigade, the square on the right, up to which the enemy had not been able to penetrate. This was so well directed and murderous as to check the rear masses of the Arabs, and the Second Brigade having only those in immediate contact to deal with, and relieved from the tremendous pressure, soon got on terms with their enemy again, shook them off, and recovered their lost formation.
The battle was restored; the retreat turned into an advance.
The Arabs, now driven back in turn, retired some distance and opened fire, which was not very effective. Indeed, in spite of it, the re-formed square, when it had recovered some hundred yards of its lost ground, was halted for a quarter of an hour for the purpose of serving out fresh ammunition, the men being exhorted not to waste it as they had done before. Desirous of retrieving their former error in this respect, they were as steady as veterans now, and advancing in line, firing deliberately and with careful aim, they cleared the ground in front, and fought back to the brink of the nullah where the enemy had broken their ranks, and re-captured the guns, the First Brigade moving up at the same time on their right. Savage with the idea that they had been forced to retire and leave their guns, though it was principally the sheer weight of numbers that had done it, and burning with revenge, the men set their teeth and went down into the nullah, clearing all before them. The Arabs defended every bush, every rock, every boulder; but there was no wild firing now, at thirty, twenty, ten paces, and even closer; every bullet had its billet, and the valley was cleared of the living, though every point which afforded cover, and had been tenaciously held by Osman Digna’s soldiers, had its groups of corpses behind it.
Officers were intoxicated with delight at the way their men behaved after their early discouragement.
“That’s the way!”
“Let them have it!”
“Give it ’em hot, boys!”
“Good man, O’Grady; there’s another for you!”
“That’s your sort; never pull trigger till you can blow him to smithereens.”
The advance of the line was not rapid, but it left nothing living behind it. Then the First Brigade under Redvers Buller went into and across the nullah, making for the second ridge held by the enemy some half mile off, still keeping the square formation. It was well that the distance to be traversed was so short, for it was now getting on for ten o’clock, and the power of the sun was intense. The ground, too, was covered with sharp rocks of red granite, and these had become so hot as to burn the feet. But what do brave men feel in the delirium of battle? When close to the foe a volley rang out, and then from every parched throat “Hurrah!” “Hurrah!” “Hurrah!” burst forth, as with levelled bayonets they rushed upon the broken ranks before them, and the ridge was carried.
There was a second beyond it, where the Arabs still lingered, and for that again they went. But the enemy, the fight at last taken out of them, made but a feeble stand, and it was carried at the first onset. But what was that firing in their rear? Had a body of Soudanese lain concealed somewhere? Or had their dead come to life again? Neither.
One of the Gardner guns had been overturned into the limber containing its ammunition, and set fire to. This kept burning, hissing, and firing shots like a gigantic and malevolent cracker for a long time. But the Blue Jackets recovered the gun. When the victorious troops crowned the last ridge, the valley of Tamai lay below them, and there was spread the camp of Osman Digna, the object of their march, the prize for which they had been fighting. The enemy made no further attempt to defend it; they had proved to their cost that the Mahdi’s assurance that the infidel guns would “spit water” was a lie.
They were disheartened, beaten at all points, and hundreds of their best and bravest lay in heaps on the hills and in the valleys to feed the vultures and the jackals. It was no retreat such as they often made, stalking slowly and sullenly from the field where they had been foiled, but a disorderly flight, a rout.
The camp was left to the conquerors, with two standards, all their ammunition, tents, stores, and the spoils of former victories, and before noon the English, without fear of molestation, were slaking their thirst at the wells.