Sir Herbert Stewart then determined to reach the Nile before next morning. A small detachment of the Royal Sussex was left to guard the wounded. The column marched about 3.30 p.m. It was a desperate venture, for the men had had no sleep for two nights, had fought a battle in between, had suffered agonies of thirst and the exhaustion of hunger. But Sir Herbert Stewart had learned from the prisoners that the enemy who had fought at Abu Klea were no more than the advanced guard of the main body, which would probably come out from Metemmeh to meet us, and that the fall of Omdurman had released a number of the Mahdi's army; and the general wished to reach the river before fighting again. He hoped to be upon the Nile before daylight. In any event, the enterprise of the Desert Column was a forlorn hope; and by this time we all knew it.
Cameron, war correspondent of The Standard, came to me with a very grave face. He was not alarmed for his own safety, for he was a most gallant man; but he feared for the Column.
"Lord Charles," he said, "have you any influence with General Stewart? If so, for God's sake implore him not to go on without reinforcements. I know these people and he does not."
The next time I saw poor Cameron was upon the following day, when he was lying with a bullet-hole in his forehead, dead.
The Column was guided by Ali Loda, a friendly desert freebooter who had been captured during the first march to Jakdul. He was accompanied by Captain Verner and Colonel Barrow. Half the force marched on foot, in case of attack; the mounted men each leading a camel. The commissariat camels were tied in threes, nose to tail, the leading camel being ridden by a native driver. Although both men and camels were tired out, they went bravely along the track leading across a wide plain, with grass and scrub in the distance. By the time it was dark, we had come to the long savas grass, and the tracks, hitherto plain to see in the brilliant starlight, became obscured. Then began the confusion. By this time men and camels were utterly exhausted. There was no moon, but no lights were allowed, and all orders were to be given in a whisper. The camels, weary and famished, lagged and tumbled down; their riders went to sleep and fell off; the leading camels fell behind; and the rear camels, most of them riderless, straggled up to the front. The formation was totally disordered. In the darkness the confusion speedily became inextricable. When there was a halt to wait for stragglers, the men lay down and dropped asleep. About this time the Column blundered into a wood of acacia trees armed with long sharp thorns. There ought to have been no such wood; indeed, Count Gleichen avers that no one ever found it afterwards.
In this state of affairs, the Column lost in the dark in an unknown country, utterly worn out, and inextricably tangled upon itself, I made the Naval Brigade unspan and gave them tea. Then we struggled on, hour after hour. As for silence, the noise might have been heard and probably was heard at Metemmeh. An immense multitudinous murmur went up from the unhappy mob of swearing men and roaring, squealing, grumbling camels. A longer or more exhausting nightmare I never suffered.
Daylight came at last. It was about 6 o'clock on the morning of 19th January. The least we had hoped was to have come within sight of the Nile. But when the Column halted there was no Nile; only a long gravel slope rising before us, set with scattered trees rising from the eternal savas grass and low scrub. Captain Verner went ahead to reconnoitre, and the Column toiled on up the ridge. Then, at last, upon reaching the top at about 7 o'clock, we beheld the wide valley, and the Nile flowing between broad belts of green, and on the left, the roofs of a chain of villages, and the walled town of Metemmeh. Beyond, upon the farther bank, clustered the huts of the village of Shendi. But we had not yet come to the river. And moving out from Metemmeh were crowds of the enemy, moving out to cut us off from the blessed water. Once more, the whole air was throbbed with the boding war-drums.
Sir Herbert Stewart determined to give the men breakfast and then to attack. As usual, a zeriba must first be constructed and the force put in laager. The Column was halted upon the top of the rising ground, in a space some 300 yards square, surrounded by a sea of thin scrub, in which the enemy could find cover. A parapet, square in plan, and about two feet six inches high, was constructed of saddles and biscuit boxes and anything else which would serve the purpose. The camels were pushed inside it, and knee-lashed, and in the centre was placed the hospital. During the progress of the work the enemy, concealed in the scrub, crept nearer and opened fire.