In the meantime, on 31st December, the day after which the Desert Column had started for the first time, Lord Wolseley had received a written message from Gordon, "Khartoum all right," dated 14th December. Should it be captured, the message was intended to deceive the captor. The messenger delivered verbal information of a different tenure, to the effect that Gordon was hard pressed and that provisions were becoming very scarce.
At the time of the starting of the Desert Column upon its second march, when it was accompanied by the first division of the Naval Brigade under the command of Lord Charles Beresford, and by other reinforcements, the general situation was briefly as follows.
The River Column, which was intended to clear the country along the Nile, to occupy Berber, and thence to join the Desert Column at Metemmeh, was assembling at Hamdab, 52 miles above Korti. It was commanded by General Earle. The four steamers sent down the river from Khartoum by General Gordon in October, were at Nasri Island, below the Shabloka Cataract, half-way between Khartoum and Metemmeh, which are 98 miles apart. Korti and Berber, as a glance at the map will show, occupy respectively the left and right corners of the base of an inverted pyramid, of which Metemmeh is the apex, while Khartoum may be figured as at the end of a line 98 miles long depending from the apex. The Desert Column traversed one side of the triangle, from Korti to Metemmeh; the River Column was intended to traverse the other two sides.
THE NILE
from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)
V. THE DESERT MARCH OF THE FORLORN HOPE