A Prisoner of the Khaleefa: Twelve Years Captivity at Omdurman

by Charles Neufeld

“What news have you brought me, and how fare the faithful?” inquired Abdullahi. “Master,” replied Osman, “I led them to Paradise.” Now, Osman had been doing this at every battle for years, and the Khaleefa’s patience was exhausted; he wanted victories, and not pilgrimages of his best troops to the next world. “Then why did you not go with them?” retorted Abdullahi. “God,” replied Osman, “had not ordained it so; He must have more work for me to do; when that work is finished, He will call me.” It was well known to the Khaleefa, and every one else in the Soudan, that Osman had an excellent eye for a |249| field of battle, and knew an hour before any one else did, when to make a bolt for it on a losing day. Osman’s appearance was quite sufficient to let people understand that all the tales of victory on the side of the dervishes were false, and it was useless for the Khaleefa to try any longer to conceal the truth, but some explanation had to be given for the terrible rout of his army. It was all the doing of an outraged Deity. Mahmoud had disobeyed the orders transmitted through Abdullahi by the Prophet, and this was the result! As other stragglers came in, extraordinary tales were told of enormous steamers with enormous guns which fired “devils” and “lightning”; this description probably referred to the rockets, which, I gathered, had ricochetted all over Mahmoud’s camp, playing terrible havoc.

On the fall of Dongola, a Mograbin (from Tunis, or Algiers), named Nowraani, had offered his services to Yacoub, as a maker of torpedoes, and with these he said he could blow up every boat on the Nile. His offer at the time was refused, as the Khaleefa said that it was his intention to capture all these boats for himself; he did not wish them to be destroyed. But the tales which came in about them after the Atbara fight, showed that something must be done to secure them. Abdallah and Hassanein undertook to make a “boom” of chains across the Sabalooka (Shabluka) pass, and for this purpose almost every scrap of chain in Omdurman was collected. Their plan, as described to me, was as follows: the chains were to be laid across the stream, their ends made fast to posts on the opposite |250| banks of the Nile. To prevent them from sinking to the bed of the stream, a series of large wooden buoys had been made, and these were to be fixed at intervals along the boom. It had been calculated that the buoys would, with the weight of the chains, be sunk just below the surface of the water, and also keep the chains in a series of loops; these loops were intended to entangle the paddles and propellers of the gunboats, and, while so entangled, Mansour’s picked men were to shoot every one on board, and then, releasing the boats, bring them on to Omdurman. That was the arrangement.

Employed in the arsenal at the time was a man named Mohammad Burrai—a Government sympathizer, and a bitter enemy of Mansour and the others; he was entrusted with the attaching of the buoys at the fixed points in the boom. A few days after the boom was sent down the river, and, while I was “practising” the healing art at the gates of the prison, I received an interesting patient; it was Burrai, his head so wrapped up in cloths as to make him unrecognizable. He told me first of the arrangements made for the boom, and how he had succeeded in destroying it. The chains had been laid over the sterns of boats anchored in the Nile from bank to bank, and Burrai had fixed the buoys to them, but instead of making the buoys fast at these points, he merely slipped the rings round the boom so that the buoys could run from one end to the other. The word was given to slip the boom off the boats. The buoys with the force of the current were carried to the centre |251| of the boom, and, with the resistance offered by them to the stream, the cables snapped and were lost. Burrai’s object in coming to me will be divined; having been employed on the construction of the boom, he might, when the English arrived, be shot as a Mahdist, and he wished to tell me, as a “Government man,” what he had done, so that I could speak up for him. This I promised to do.

There were no more chains left with which to make another boom, but those terrible boats must be stopped from coming to Omdurman, and Nowraani was sent for to explain his project again. He proposed to take two large tubular boilers, then lying at Khartoum, cut them in two, fill them with powder, seal up the open ends, and fire them by electricity as the boats passed over them. Sirri, the former telegraph-clerk at Berber, was asked to design the electrical apparatus, but he pleaded ignorance of such things. I was next sent to, to give my opinion as to the feasibility of Nowraani’s plan. It was explained to me that each half of the boilers would contain thirty cantars (a ton and a half) of gunpowder; then it was mines, and not torpedoes, the man wished to make; however, the name “torpedo” was always used. I replied that I had heard, as Nowraani said, of torpedoes being used in the sea for the destruction of great ships, but had never heard of them being used in rivers, and I doubted his ability to make them. The Khaleefa was not satisfied with my answer, and sent word that he believed I could assist in the making of them, but would not. To this, again, I said I should be only too |252| pleased to help Nowraani in his work, but what he proposed to do was very dangerous and risky. I said I felt sure that the only result would be an explosion while the torpedoes were being made, and that, while I did not mind being killed myself, I would not like to meet Allah responsible for the lives of others. Perhaps I made a mistake in putting forward religious scruples, for the Khaleefa never believed in my conversion; he took it for granted that I refused to help, and told the Saier to load me with an extra chain and bar.

Nowraani insisted that his plans were feasible, and a small experimental “torpedo” was ordered to be made; Mansour, Hassanein, and Abdallah superintended the work, which was carried out in almost absolute secrecy. When finished, the mine was taken over to the Blue Nile, made fast under a boat, and exploded. The result was most satisfactory—the boat being blown to matchwood, and a large column of mud and water thrown into the air, which was more impressive, evidently, than the destruction of the boat.

NEUFELD DOUBLY FETTERED.

The “torpedoes” were ordered immediately, and men were kept working night and day for their completion; the boilers were cut in two, plates fitted to the open ends, wires and “strings,” as it was described to me, fitted to mechanism in the interior, and in maybe a fortnight’s time I learned that four big and one small torpedo were fastened to gyassas ready to be lowered into the stream, while others were being made. Again I received a visit from Burrai; he had |253| to assist in the laying of the mines, and wanted to know from me how they might be rendered useless. From his description of the wires and lines running in pairs, I came to the conclusion that electricity was to be the medium for their explosion, especially as Burrai’s instructions were to take charge of these lines, pay them out as the torpedoes sank, and make the free ends of the line fast to posts, which had been fixed on the land just south of Khor Shamba. I told him that if either wire or string of the pairs of lines was broken, the torpedoes could not be fired, and suggested his giving a hard tug to one of the lines as soon as the “barrel” as he called the mines, was lowered to the bed of the stream.

What happened we know; how it happened we never shall. Burrai was seen on the Ismailia, which towed down the stone-laden gyassas with the torpedoes; the gyassas were to have a hole knocked in them, and the boat and torpedoes allowed to sink gradually. One torpedo had been lowered, and an explosion immediately followed. The boats with Nowraani and between thirty and forty men were blown to atoms; the Ismailia was blown in two—the stern floating a few yards down stream and sinking. Burrai was picked out of the water with the whole of the flesh of the calf of his left leg blown clear away, and also the flesh from his ribs on the left side. He lingered for seven days, asking repeatedly for me; but all that I was allowed to do was to send him carbolic acid for his wounds—I was not allowed to go and see him. To all inquiries as to how the accident |254| happened he could, or would, only say that all he did was to pull in the slack of the lines, to prevent their becoming entangled.

Sorry as I am for poor Burrai’s death, I cannot consider that I am in any way to blame for it; I can only think that some system of fuse, or detonator, had been fixed to the “torpedoes,” and that the very action which I had suggested to render them useless had exploded them. About the time that the mines exploded, Onoor returned, or, at least, I received the news of his return, by receiving the letter and money he had brought from Suakin. Every one with leanings towards the Government was now coming to me in prison under one pretext or another, to give me information as to all that was going on; it was to their interest to do so, as to the end I was looked upon as an official. Owing to this, I was able to send out to Onoor slips of paper giving as nearly correct details as possible of the number of various arms possessed by the dervishes, the stock of ammunition, and the Khaleefa’s plans as far as they were known. In one of my notes I informed the army of the explosion of the “torpedoes,” and the existence of two other mines ready to be sent off, with details concerning the forts. I asked Onoor to get away with these as quickly as possible, and he promised to do so. I do not know who he handed these notes to, or whether he handed them over himself; he replies to my inquiries by writing me from Omdurman saying that he was arrested on the Nile by Osman Digna, but whether coming or going from the army it is impossible to say. My own opinion is that Onoor, |255| not knowing how the day would go, remained in Omdurman the whole time. If the English won, his life was safe as a well-known spy; if the dervishes won, he was among his own people, and could take credit for having contributed towards the victory. He was not the only one in the Soudan who debated chances and probabilities as did Hassib Gabou, and Hogal when Gabou talked him over on April 1, 1887.