Neufeld, quite contrary to Slatin Pasha's way of speaking, declared to me that the Khalifa was not at all a bad sort of man, nor an exceptionally cruel Arab task-master, and certainly not a monster. The Khalifa, he said, had often come and chatted with him. Abdullah had vowed to him, that if he were able to have his own way he would make a close friend of him, and have him always near his person. The Khalifa asserted he liked white men, admired their knowledge and ability, and would, were he permitted, have many of them in Khartoum. As everybody knew, he befriended the Greeks, because he could do that with safety, for the natives were not so jealous of them as of other white men. The Taaisha were, he declared, absurdly suspicious of his intercourse with Neufeld, and were always bringing him tales, to try and get him to kill all the white men without exception. His countrymen's jealous, narrow fanaticism annoyed him, but what, he asked, could he do, for he was very much in their power, and unable to afford to fly in their faces? Abdullah often spoke thus, according to Neufeld, and, as the latter also said, frequently that leader of the fanatical dervishes exhibited keen interest in acquiring information about Europe and its people. He hoped to make peace some day with the outside world, and be allowed thereafter to rule the Soudan. All this, I submit, is rather puzzling, in view of the filthy den the Khalifa kept Neufeld shut up in, and the manner in which he loaded him with heavy leg-irons. During his captivity, Neufeld had with him an Abyssinian girl, or rather woman. She was taken prisoner with him. Thereafter she devotedly ministered to his wants, fetched water and food, and made, under his tuition, really eatable bread. Neufeld, who said he met me in 1884–85, up the Nile, when he was attached to the army, gave me a piece of this bread, and I found it quite palatable. Yeast is easily made in the Soudan with sour dough and sugar.
As arsenals mayhap date back to the eras of Tubal Cain and Vulcan, it was to be expected the Khalifa would also have his modern smithy. He made his own gunpowder, shells, and bullets, and the metallic cases for his troops' Remington rifles. The country was laid under contribution to supply copper for that purpose, and he essayed the filling of percussion caps with fulminate, not over successfully I hope. He had his cartridge manufactory, and a very well equipped engineer shop as well. Yea, the potentate was setting up a Zoo, wherein I saw three young lions chained to posts by neck collars, as though those savage beasts were watch-dogs. As for the engineer shop, with foundry and smithy attached, the Beit el Mauna, it was part of a cleverly planned square of buildings with a river frontage and a spacious yard. The designer was one El Osta Abdullah, a former employee of General Gordon's in Khartoum Arsenal. There were several steam engines; the principal one driving the main shafting was of 28 horse-power. The fly-wheel was 4 feet in diameter. There were five lathes, one cat-head lathe—36 inch, three drills, and other tools including a slotting machine, all in perfect going order. The machinery had formed part of the dismantled Khartoum Arsenal, and had been removed into Omdurman to be nearer the watchful eyes of Yacoub, who superintended the workshops, though destitute of mechanical knowledge. El Osta was the foreman and had numbers of natives, free and prisoners, under him. There were plenty of crucibles for iron as well as brass smelting. The blasts of furnaces and smithy fires were served from fanners driven by machinery. There were paint shops and stores, the floors of which were laid in bricks. In truth, the arsenal was in process of extension. Two more engines for the shop were in course of completion. The steamers disabled or wrecked in the 1885 campaign had all been recovered and overhauled by the dervishes. They were sagacious enough to make use of all the skilled labour to be found amongst the Turkish and Egyptian prisoners who fell into their hands. Although the Khalifa's river steamers, recaptured by the Sirdar, could steam fully as well as ever, their hulls and decks were dreadfully rotten and dilapidated, not a pound of paint nor any fresh timber having been used upon them in all the intervening years.
"Is that mean, dirty compound, with those squalid mud-huts, facing the Khalifa's big wall, Osman Digna's house?" I asked. "Yes," said my native informant, "that is the house of the robber-chief, Osman Digna." I entered and found within only a few wretched slaves and poor Hadendowas. Osman, like the Khalifa, had given us the slip, leaving behind such of his people as he thought of no value, and hurrying away with all his women and treasure towards the south. They had horses and camels, and upon the best of them they decamped. Several of the notorious Osman Digna's tribal retainers were caught. These wretched Hadendowas were, I was told, glad to be permitted subsequently to return to their own country. Over 300 Abyssinians were amongst our prisoners. They had volunteered or been coerced into joining the dervish ranks. All of them were surprised to find themselves kindly treated. In due course, those who cared to go—men, women and children—were provided with free passages back to Abyssinia. The Sirdar held several receptions, whereat the principal native leaders and sheikhs attended. Amongst others delighted at the overthrow of the Khalifa were all the survivors of the old Khedivial army, who had been abandoned to their fate for years. Of these were the whilom Governor of Senaar, a native artillery officer who had been with Hicks Pasha, and Gordon Pasha's native medical attendant.
During the week after the battle the British and Khedivial troops, by brigades, made triumphal marches into and through Omdurman. Proceeding from our camp with flags flying and bands playing, they went along the main thoroughfares to the Tomb and Mosque, returning by a circuitous route to quarters. The ex-dervishes and other natives flocked in thousands to see the finely-equipped and well-disciplined battalions led by the Sirdar. It was an exhibition of power they quite understood, and one which won from them open praise at the gallant bearing of our soldiery. The immediate effect was to produce a feeling of deep respect for the authority of the new order of things.
When it was found that the Khalifa had escaped by the south end of Omdurman, Colonel Broadwood, with his two regiments of Egyptian cavalry and the Camel Corps, started in pursuit. Gunboats also proceeded up the White Nile to head off the fugitives. Unfortunately as there had been a very general rainfall, the desert routes towards Kordofan were not absolutely waterless. The cavalry soon found that they were upon a hot trail; and men, women, and children, who had been unable to keep pace with the flying Khalifa and Osman Digna, were picked up. Some of these, no doubt, had purposely given their master the slip. It was in that way that Abdullah's chief wife, the Sheikh Ed Din's mother, was caught and brought in by the "friendlies." One poor woman, just confined, had the babe, a male, taken away by her lord, whilst she was left to shift for herself. Happily, her life was saved.
As I have said relatively little about the Egyptian cavalry, I will let one of their officers tell what they did. Colonel Broadwood had under him a magnificent body of officers, British and Egyptian. Captain Legge of the 20th Hussars was the brigade-major. The narrative in question was given to me a few days after the victory.
"The Sirdar's orders on the morning of the battle to Colonel Broadwood were, to take up successive positions on his (the Sirdar's) right flank, and to prevent the enemy's left from overlapping too far. The fear was that the dervishes might attack upon the north or weakest side of the zereba. After rejoining the infantry towards the end of the assault made on Macdonald's brigade we were formed into two lines. Turning our backs to the Nile, that is, facing west, we galloped in pursuit of the retreating dervishes. For four miles we rode forward without check. Then we wheeled to the left, towards Omdurman, and swept the country on the right front of the Sirdar over a width of four miles. We were shot at repeatedly, and sometimes heavily, by bands of fugitives, but we never drew rein, using lance and sword upon all who showed fight. In that draw we made 1000 prisoners, breaking the Remingtons of those who had rifles and sending our captives under escort of a squadron to the Sirdar. When close to Omdurman we came across a large body of dervishes full of 'buck.' Four of our squadrons went for them. They charged clean through them, wheeled, and charged back again. That took the sting out of them, though there were still individual dervishes who would keep trying to charge us. Colonel Broadwood came up at that juncture with the supports, whereupon the enemy all bolted for the hills. At 2 p.m. we reported to headquarters, and, following the infantry, went to water our horses at the Nile. The same afternoon we passed through part of Omdurman and went out upon the open desert to the south-west. At 6.30 p.m. Slatin Pasha brought us orders to start immediately in pursuit of the Khalifa. We went on as best we could until 8.30 p.m., without food or water. Trying to run in towards the river to procure both, for a gunboat was to carry our supplies, we found it was impossible to get within two miles of the Nile owing to the overflow having turned the margin into boggy land. Besides, the bushy inaccessible ground was teeming with hostile dervishes. We had missed our way. Without off-saddling, we bivouacked where we were, forming square. At 4 a.m. we mounted and rode on, going until 8.30 a.m., when we got down to the river. There Slatin Pasha quitted us, returning to Omdurman. We halted for an hour, watered and fed our poor horses, and had a bite for ourselves. Then we remounted and rode fifteen miles farther south. We had reached a point just thirty-five miles south of Omdurman. Our horses had been going almost continuously for four days previously, the forage was finished, and the animals exhausted, so we again halted. Supplies had been ordered forward to that spot, but the overflow prevented us from being able to get near enough the native boats to draw upon them for stores. We decided to bivouac there and take our chance of being able somehow to get at the boats. Next morning we were ordered back into Omdurman. Slatin Pasha had learned from fugitives and natives that the Khalifa was still twenty-five miles ahead of us. Abdullah had with him 100 Taaisha Baggara, and had procured fresh camels and horses, so was 'going strong,' too good for us to catch up. The riverside country people could not credit that we had defeated the Khalifa and taken Omdurman. On our way back we picked up six of Osman Digna's Hadendowas. They said Osman was riding with the Khalifa, showing him the tracks and bypaths, with all of which he was familiar. We heard that neither Osman nor the Khalifa was wounded, and that Sheikh Ed Din was likewise untouched."
It has been too readily accepted that the Black, although an incomparably fine infantry-man, would not make a good trooper. There are Blacks and Blacks as there are "Browns and Browns." Many of the negroid races of the Central Soudan are excellent horsemen. The dash of the Khalifa's mounted men was superb. So it came about that after Omdurman the Sirdar decided to reinforce the Egyptian cavalry with a newly raised squadron or two composed entirely of Blacks. Ex-dervishes of suitable smartness and physique were permitted to join the new body, the ranks of which were filled in a very short time, for hundreds eagerly volunteered. The accounts I have since heard of the 1st Black Cavalry are eminently favourable. There can be no doubt about one thing,—whatever may be said of fellaheen troopers, the Blacks will charge home.
Another matter that merits a little more detail is the action fought by Major Stuart Wortley's "friendlies," and the work accomplished by the flotilla under Commander Keppel, R.N. It was the gunboats that transported the British infantry from their camps at Dakhala and Darmali so smartly to Wad Habeshi. Their assistance in that respect reduced the campaign from one of months to days, and lessened the risks to the troops. Eight steamers arrived at Dakhala on one occasion, and the transport department did its duty so well that they were loaded and despatched back up stream within twenty-four hours. Royan Island had not only been made a depôt of stores, but a sanatorium where sick officers and men were sent as a "pick 'em up." An order from the Sirdar on the 30th of August was wired to Royan, to find 235 men and 8 officers who were well enough to man the gunboats, to be in short amateur marines. At that date there were 327 sick upon the island. Most of them were eager to get to the front, but the doctors would not certify that any of them were able to bear the fatigue of marching. There was therefore great rejoicing among the more convalescent, for they had begun to despair of seeing the fight. The hospital state showed that there were then at Royan 46 men of the Warwicks, 69 of the Lincolns, 62 of the Seaforths, 36 of the Camerons, 19 of the Grenadier Guards, 42 of the Northumberland Fusiliers, 42 of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and 21 of the Rifles. From 25 to 40 men were marched on board each of the gunboats the same day. Captain Ferguson of the Northumberland Fusiliers became marine officer on board the "Sultan," Lieutenant Allardice went to the "Sheik," Lieutenant Seymour of the Grenadier Guards to the "Melik," Captain Ritchie to the "Nazir," Lieutenant Arbuthnot to the "El Hafir," and Lieutenant Jackson and other officers respectively to the "Tamai," "Fatah," "Metemmeh," etc.
On the 31st of August the "Melik" kept abreast of the cavalry acting as a screen. At noon of the same day the "Sultan" and the "Melik" and "Nazir" were sent to shell the dervish tents and tukals seen to the east of Kerreri village. The enemy were found in some force, about 3500 strong. Eight or ten shrapnel were fired into their zerebaed camp. Right in the middle of the tents the first shell burst. The dervishes struck their camp instantly, and mounted men and footmen ran to the hills, their flight quickened by the gunboats' Maxims. Their zereba was burned. South Kerreri village was found unoccupied. The steamers proceeded a little further up stream, had a look at Tuti Island, and on the west bank caught sight of a body of dervishes, Emir Zaccharia's men, who also had a taste of shrapnel and Maxims.