The men breakfasted in a rain of bullets. So wearied were they, that some fell asleep over their food, bullets singing all about them. Many of the men got no food at all. I saw two men shot while they slept. One Dervish in particular sniped the Naval Brigade all breakfast-time. I subsequently discovered him in the bush, lying dead, a bullet through his head, in a litter of about 200 spent cartridges. One of my men was shot, and a spoke was knocked out of the wheel of the Gardner gun. A soldier was shot through the stomach, and was carried screaming to the doctors, who gave him laudanum.
The situation was far from encouraging. During the night—the third without sleep—the men had marched for 14 hours, covering 19 miles, and losing some hundred camels. We were still four miles from the river, and between the river and our exhausted force were thousands of raging Dervishes. We were caught in a trap.
Seventy yards from our left flank was a little hill. In order to prevent its capture by the enemy, 30 Guardsmen were told off to occupy it. Volunteers carried saddles and boxes across the bullet-swept space and built a small breastwork with them. Several men were knocked over. In the meantime a company was extended along the ridge some 50 yards beyond the zeriba to check the enemy's fire; but they had nothing at which to aim except the puffs of smoke rising above the scrub. The Naval Brigade had no better luck with the Gardner gun, placed outside the zeriba near the left angle of the front.
At some time between 9 and 10 o'clock Sir Herbert Stewart was hit in the groin and severely wounded. The knowledge of this disaster was concealed from the men as long as possible. Then followed a terrible interval, which lasted for hours. Under that pitiless fire, exposed to an invisible enemy, men and camels were being hit every minute. All this time the heat was intense. There we lay in the blazing sun, helpless, the rattle of rifles all around us, the thin high note of the bullets singing overheard, or ending with a thud close at hand; men crying out suddenly, or groaning; camels lying motionless and silent, blood trickling from their wounds; and no one seemed to know what we were going to do. Of all things, the most trying to a soldier is to lie still under fire without being able to reply. It is true that there was volley firing in reply to the enemy, but they were invisible.
The command had naturally devolved upon Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, R.E., head of the Intelligence Department. It was clear to me that unless we marched against the enemy at once, we were done. I dispatched a written message to Sir Charles Wilson. The messenger was killed. I sent a second message by Sub-Lieutenant E. L. Munro, R.N., who was struck by a bullet which wounded him in seven places.
Shortly afterwards I received a message from Sir Charles Wilson informing me that he was about to march against the enemy. I was ordered to remain in command of the zeriba, with Colonel Barrow.
Before forming square, Sir Charles Wilson ordered the breastwork surrounding the hospital and that defending the little knoll occupied by the Guards in our rear, to be strengthened into redoubts, in case of attack. The ammunition boxes must be shifted from the inside of the main zeriba, and carried across and among the baggage and the packed and helpless camels, a slow, laborious and dangerous business performed under fire. Men and officers worked with a will; yet it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon before they had done. Just then St. Leger Herbert, private secretary to Sir Herbert Stewart and correspondent of The Morning Post, was shot through the head.
The square was composed of half the Heavy Camel Regiment, Guards, Mounted Infantry, Royal Sussex, Royal Engineers, and some dismounted Hussars. Sir Charles Wilson placed it under the executive command of Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. E. E. Boscawen. The square was formed up in rear of the zeriba at 2.30 and marched at 3 o'clock. The men were cool, alert, and perfectly determined. The British soldier had shut his mouth. He was going to get to the river, enemy or no enemy, or die. By this time the enemy were plainly visible in full force in front, horse and foot gathering behind a line of green and white banners. The moment the square moved beyond the redoubt, it received a heavy fire. Several men were hit, and were carried back to the zeriba by our men, while the square moved forward at quick march. It made a zig-zag course in order to take advantage of the clear patches of ground among the scrub; lying down and firing, and again advancing.
The Naval Brigade mounted the Gardner gun in the angle of the redoubt, and, together with the Royal Artillery and two of their screw-guns under Captain Norton, maintained a steady fire at the three distinct masses of the enemy. Two of these were hovering in front of the advancing square, upon the landward slope of the hill rising between us and the river; the third threatened the zeriba. In all of these we dropped shells, paying particular attention to the body menacing the zeriba. When the shells burst in their midst, the dervishes scattered like a flock of starlings.
In the zeriba were the most of the Hussars, whose horses were worn out, the Royal Artillery, half the Heavy Camel Regiment, half the Royal Engineers, what was left of the Naval Brigade, and the wounded in the hospital. Some 2000 camels were knee-lashed outside and all round the larger zeriba, forming a valuable breastwork.