CHAPTER XXXI
THE SOUDAN WAR (Continued)
IX. THE RESCUE
"And while lying near Metemmeh
He went—many a time you know—
Up the river in his steamer,
Dealing havoc on the foe;
And each gallant tar and Jollie
That was with him, fighting there,
Now would follow without question,
Let him lead them, anywhere."
Songs of the Camel Corps (Sergeant H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.)
[The men used to sing 'Our Navy on the Nile,' of which the above is an excerpt; but the rest is so complimentary to the author, that he is obliged to omit it.]
At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st February the Safieh left Gubat to proceed to the rescue of Sir Charles Wilson's force. From the time the news arrived until we started, we were occupied in getting wood and stores. With me were Lieutenant E. B. van Koughnet, Sub-Lieutenant Colin R. Keppel, Surgeon Arthur William May, Chief Engineer Henry Benbow, Acting-Lieutenant Walter Ingram, Mr. Webber, boatswain, all of the Royal Navy, Lieutenant R. L. Bower, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and Lieutenant Stuart-Wortley, who had brought the news of the disaster. The vessel was manned by picked men from both divisions of the Naval Brigade, and carried twenty non-commissioned officers and men, picked shots, of the Mounted Infantry, under the command of Lieutenant R. L. Bower. The engine-room staff consisted of Chief Engineer Benbow; two engine-room artificers, Royal Navy, J. T. Garland and G. Woodman; and one chief stoker, Royal Navy; an Arab or Egyptian engineer, and six Soudanese stokers. We mounted the two Gardner guns in echelon on the platform made of railway sleepers and boiler-plate amidships, and one of the two brass 4-pr. mountain guns was placed in the turret forward, the other in the turret aft, both turrets being built of railway sleepers and boiler-plate, with which defences the ship had been cased above water. The Reis (native pilot) was stationed inside the barricade protecting the wheel, to guide the helmsman, who was a bluejacket. The native boats always carry two Reises, one to look out, the other to steer. Our Reis was mounted upon a box so that he could see over the barricade. In order to guard against the kind of accident which had befallen Sir Charles Wilson's steamers, I informed him that if he took us safely up and down he would be rewarded, but that upon any indication of treachery he would be shot at once. He was then handcuffed to a stanchion, and Quartermaster Olden, with a loaded revolver, was placed at his side. Surgeon-General A. W. May, who very kindly sent me his recollections of the trip, writes: "A quartermaster with the nickname of 'Punch' was told off to look after him, and he stood as grim as death at his side, revolver in hand, quite ready at the slightest sign of treachery to carry out his orders ... I always attribute our getting up and down when the river was low and dangerous to your wise warning of the pilot."
The Safieh was simply a penny steamer in a packing-case. Where the packing-case was deficient, bullets went through her as through paper, and a shell would pierce her wooden jacket. The pinch would come when we sighted the fort at Wad Habeshi, which lay on our right hand, between us and Mernat Island, where was Sir Charles Wilson's party, and which was some 36 miles up stream from Gubat.
On 1st February we shoved along at the rate of 2.5 miles an hour, the most the Safieh could do against the current, stopped to get wood, and anchored in the stream during the night. It was impossible to navigate in the dark. The next day was almost entirely occupied in collecting wood, which was laboriously obtained by dismantling and cutting up the sakiehs, native water-wheels. That evening we arrived within three or four miles of Wad Habeshi, and again anchored for the night. After weighing next morning, I assembled the ship's company and briefly addressed them. I told them that we were in a tight place, but that we would get out of it; that if we failed to rescue Sir Charles Wilson, the Mahdi's men would get them and would then come down upon Gubat; but that we would save Wilson's party. The men were as cheery and steady as possible.
At 7 a.m. we sighted Wad Habeshi on the starboard hand; and we saw, far up the river, the trees of Mernat Island, and the tilted hull and funnel of the stranded Bordein.
By 7.30 a.m. we were within 1200 yards of the fort, and I opened fire with the bow gun. Wad Habeshi was a strong earthwork, with four embrasures, mounting four guns, and manned, according to Stuart-Wortley's report, by 5000 riflemen. The only practicable channel ran within 80 yards of the fort. We could only crawl past the battery, and as we were defenceless against gun-fire, our only chance was to maintain so overwhelming a fire upon the embrasures as to demoralise the guns' crews. It was an extreme instance of the principle that the best defence resides in gun-fire rather than in armour; for we had no effective armour.
Accordingly, the starboard Gardner and the two brass guns, the 20 soldiers and 14 bluejackets, poured a steady and an accurate fire into the fort, disregarding the parties of riflemen who were shooting at us from the bank. There were some 600 or 800 of these, and one gun opened fire from the side embrasure of the fort. Poor von Koughnet was shot in the leg, and second-class petty officer Edwin Curnow, number two of the crew of the starboard Gardner, fell mortally wounded, and died that evening. But so deadly was the fire we poured into the embrasures of the fort, that the enemy could not fire the two guns bearing upon the Safieh while she was bore abeam of them. We passed the fort, and by the time we had left it about 200 yards astern, our fire necessarily slackened, as our guns no longer bore upon the battery.