On 2nd August, in the face of a strong south wind, the 1st and 2nd Khedivial brigades, respectively Colonel Macdonald's and Colonel Maxwell's, embarked in very close order on steamers and giassas for Wad Habeshi. The distance was about 140 miles by water from Dakhala, but it took the gunboats and their tows over three days to get there, for the craft were deeply ladened with men and stores. The soupy whirling Nile flood washed the decks of the steamers almost from stem to stern. It was little short of the rarest good fortune there was no accident by the way. Everybody turned out to see the brigades off. Merrily stepped the black battalions, their women-folk raising the usual shrill cry of jubilation, whilst the bands played the favourite air, "O, dem Golden Slippers." Regimental bands do droll things occasionally. I remember in the year of the Dongola Campaign and the cholera visitation, 1896, a grim blunder made by a native battalion's band. The serious surroundings of those days led me to say nothing of the matter at that time. Military interments, in cholera cases, were ordinarily made very early in the morning or late in the afternoon, just before sunset. A popular native Egyptian officer fell a victim to the epidemic one afternoon. The sun had but set when the funeral party, headed by the full regimental band, were seen hastening towards the cemetery, for there was no time to lose. The tune actually being played was not the "Dead March in Saul" but "Up I came with my little lot." When the gunboats started up the Nile for Wad Habeshi, towing alongside barges and giassas, all the crafts crammed with men and stores, more than one of the fellaheen battalions were regaled with the full strains of "'E dunno were 'e are."
By the end of July the Egyptian cavalry—nine squadrons—under Colonel Broadwood, with the camel corps under Major Tudway, the horse artillery and one or two batteries, had been ferried across from Dakhala to the west bank. On the 4th of August the whole of the mounted force named, about 2000 strong, started to march along the bank to Wad Habeshi. Going along the bank means, at high Nile, leading the troops upon a course half to a full mile from the river so as to avoid creeks and overflows and, at same time, secure the advantage of moving upon the more open ground beyond the zone of cultivation, out upon the edge of the bare desert. It was also early in August that the last of the fourteen double-decked iron barges, designed for the conveyance of troops, was finished at Dakhala. Except the surplus and reserve stores everything was put to instant service. As good a march in its way, if not better in some respects than that of the 5th Egyptian battalion from Suakin to Berber, was the tramp of the 17th Egyptian—also a fellaheen regiment—from Merawi to Dakhala. They made a record rapid tramp, following the Nile, up to Dakhala.
At Dakhala I frequently saw and conversed with the Sirdar, Generals Rundle and Gatacre, Colonels Wingate and Slatin Pasha. There seemed no reason to doubt but that the Khalifa would remain at Omdurman and give us a fight. Abdullah the Taaisha gave out as widely as he could that he meant actual business and dying if necessary at the Mahdi's tomb. His women-folk had not then been sent away, and that looked promising for battle. We heard that he was building more stout walls and digging numberless trenches for defence. Of ammunition for small arms and his ordinary brass rifled guns we were told he had no lack. For the three or four excellent batteries of Krupps he possessed he had but sixty rounds per cannon—enough, with good common and shrapnel shell, had he made right use of his means, to have made matters unpleasant for us until our gunners and Maxims found the range. It was regarded as doubtful whether he would be able to employ any of the machine guns in the dervish armoury. Of all Gordon's "penny steamers" only one, it was said, was serviceable, and she was kept under steam night and day at Omdurman.
Though he kept a bold front, blustered, and promised his adherents no end of good things, and told them that, as in 1884–85, it was God's will to turn the English back at the eleventh hour, Khalifa Abdullah was truly in a parlous state. With all the Sirdar's care, we could not keep from the dervish leader the extent of our preparations or forwardness for the advance. As usual, Sir Herbert Kitchener was well ahead of the time planned for moving on. We learned that, bar unforeseen accidents and delays, the whole of his army would be in front of Omdurman in a little over one month from the 1st of August. Two dates in September were given for the fall of that stronghold. It turned out to be neither. Kordofan had become openly rebellious against the Khalifa. A caravan of over 1140 people, with women, children and cattle marching overland, had arrived from that remote region at Korti in the Dongola province. The multitude, who were accompanied by many influential sheikhs flying from Mahdist misrule, sent a deputation to the Sirdar asking his assistance to take and hold El Obeid. As if that were not enough in the way of shutting the door behind the Khalifa, sheikhs came down from the Blue Nile provinces, seeking protection. Help was given to them, and bodies of friendlies were got together to seize Senaar and other important places. The Nile was running very swift and full in August, the current moving at fully six miles an hour past Dakhala. In July the Atbara, which had again begun slowly to flow, suddenly rose, the muddy water roaring along in a series of terraced wave-walls. Its 300-yards wide bed, where it joined the Nile, was within a few minutes choked with the tawny flood up to nearly the top of the 30-foot banks on either side. Bursting into the Nile the sea of soup seemed to push its way in a well-defined stream nearly across the 1200-yards broad bosom of the Father of Waters.
The first half of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade arrived on the 2nd of August at Dakhala, during a blustering dust-storm. For all that, black and travel-stained, they were glad to detrain, and to plod through the sand, and breast the laden atmosphere, in order to get into camp hard by the Atbara. The following day the remainder of the battalion marched in under somewhat pleasanter conditions. Everybody turned out to cheer the smart, soldierlike detachments. On the 6th inst. the first half of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards arrived, and later on the remainder. The Sirdar and Generals Rundle and Gatacre, and the staffs went to greet them. A finer and more stalwart body of troops was never seen in the Soudan. Native opinion was more than favourable respecting them, and I heard observations on all sides that the Khalifa had no men he could set against them. The Sirdar and General Gatacre also expressed themselves much pleased with the appearance of the Grenadiers, who looked like seasoned soldiers and came in without a sick man in their ranks.
CHAPTER V.
Dakhala Camp: Gossip and Duty.
Dirt is the essence of savagery, and there is a superfluity of both in the Soudan. I have no desperate wish so to describe the vileness of the surroundings of the correspondents' camp at Dakhala that even casual thinkers will sniff at it. The place was bad enough in all conscience, and, mayhap, therein I have said all that is necessary. As for the worry of our lives, squatted as we were in the least agreeable quarter of the big rectangular fort, long will the memory of those days and nights burden our existence. What a time I had on those sand and dust heaps, where every puff of wind and every footfall raised clouds of pulverised cosmos. For two weeks, amid the wretched scene, hideous by night as by day, I persisted in existing. It was a huge pen with men, horses, camels, donkeys, dogs and poultry hobnobbing amid a daily wreckage of old provision tins, garbage of soiled forage and stable-sweepings and whatnot. All that, with a temperature of 116 degrees to 120 degrees Fahr. in the shade, wore the temper and added amazingly to the consumption of wet things. At the Grenadier Guards' mess one sultry evening they consumed twenty-eight dozen of sodas, and it was not a record night. Without giving anybody's secret away, I may say I know a gentleman who could polish off three dozen at a sitting, and unblushingly call for more. These are details of more interest to teetotalers than to the general public. Yet, not to let the subject pass without a word of caution to afflicted future travellers in the Soudan, the inordinate use of undiluted mineral waters of native manufacture is most dangerous to health.
We correspondents had to wink both eyes in much of our telegraphic news from the front, for military reasons. The press censor was Colonel Wingate, chief of the Intelligence Department. In his absence, Major-General Rundle, chief of staff, usually acted. Personally, either gentleman was all that could be desired. Both were alike ready and courteous in the discharge of their at all times rather onerous duty, giving frequent audience to the numerous contingent of eager newsmen, garrulous and prodigal with pencil and pen. Some of the new-comers to the business felt sorely hit, because they were precluded from writing at large upon all subjects connected with the campaign. The excision of their copy grieved and hurt them as much as if they had been subjected to a real surgical amputation. Yet those two officers but obeyed orders, for after all, and under every circumstance, the Sirdar, as I am well aware, was the real censor. It is perhaps fairly open to argument whether the course adopted in dealing with correspondents' copy was wise or necessary in a war against an ignorant and savage foe. There was, at least, one official blunder which gave occasion for much annoyance, and ought to have been promptly remedied, or better still, never committed. It was expected of Colonel Wingate, the censor, that amid multifarious important responsibilities as chief of the Intelligence branch he should find time daily to peruse and correct tens of thousands of words, often crabbedly written, in press messages. With the approach of the day of battle, his own department taxed more and more his entire attention, and side by side the correspondents' telegrams grew in length and importance. The task of proper censorship under such conditions was impossible for any human being to discharge adequately. On that account the public interest suffered, for press matters were often neither promptly nor fully despatched. As a rule, the correspondents were left in blissful ignorance of what had been cut out of their copy, as well as of the exact nature of the residuum transmitted. Besides these grievances there was one of favouritism alleged, but of that there is always more or less in every phase of life and association. All told, it may be thought that the correspondents' complaints were of no very serious character. That depends on how they are looked at. I have no taste for cavilling or grumbling over events that are past. Surely, however, there is a middle way somewhere to be found between the absolutism of a general in the field, who may gag the correspondents or treat them as camp followers, and the clear right of the British public under our free institutions to have news dealing with the progress of their arms rapidly transmitted home. I am well aware of the grave responsibilities that hedge a commander-in-chief, and the cruel injury that an unrestrained non-combatant may do him by recklessly writing on subjects calculated to jeopardise the success of a campaign and hazard countless lives and fortunes. The latter is an remote possibility. A commander-in-chief has to consider that any enemy worth his salt is usually kept informed by spies and deserters, and press-men who are known and cognisant of their duty are no more likely to betray secrets to their country's enemies than any officer or soldier in the Queen's service. And nowadays the private correspondence from troops in the field cannot be suppressed, and it is often published. Commanders of armies will either have to accept the presence of recognised writers, over whom they can exercise some control, or instead stand powerless before a dangerous flood of random army letters poured into the public press. The case can be met with judgment and care—plus penalties where deserved. I am bringing no charges here, but discussing a vexed and withal important question. I am glad to say that during the Omdurman Campaign there was no attempt, within my knowledge, of muzzling the press. This does not bear upon the Fashoda incident, but that came later.