The day after the battle of Kirbekan an outpost was being sent forward. Moving to its position, it espied a wounded dervish making signs for water. One of the soldiers slipped off his camel to give him some, and his comrades moved on. As time went on, and their chum did not catch them up, they came back to see what had happened. There he was, still attending to the wounded dervish, his hand resting on his shoulder, but there was no movement from either. Approaching—this was the tale plainly written. The lines on the ground showed that “Tommy” had taken the wounded man in his arms, and half supporting and half dragging him, had placed him in a sitting posture in the shade, with his back against a rock; then, taking his water-bottle, he began to pour the life-giving drops down the throat of the dervish, for he still grasped the empty water-bottle. With returning life came, of course, returning strength—sufficient |287| strength for the dervish to slip off his knife, poise his hand for a second of time behind “Tommy’s” back, while he was occupied with his mission of mercy, and then, plunging it in with sufficient force to divide the spinal column, the dervish died happy as “Tommy” fell dead across his shoulder. That dervish was glorified in the Soudan, and thousands of others were awaiting the opportunity of dying as gloriously. Do you like the picture now? These are the sort of people you howl for the protection of. If you wish the wounded dervishes to be attended to against their will, then institute some special decoration for those who return alive from their mission of mercy, and when you have discovered that for each decoration given, a few hundred valuable lives have been sacrificed, perhaps you will agree to the issue of orders which I, knowing what I do know, should issue now.
If I had my say in the matter, when next the Government troops come face to face with the tribes, whom Lord Kitchener in his clemency spared to gather again around the Khaleefa, I should make it a drum-head court-martialling business for any doctor who risked the lives of his wounded in hospital by attempting to throw away his own in attending to a wounded dervish who does not want to live. He is wounded to death or would not be lying or sitting there, and he wants to die—but to die killing; he wants your life’s blood, not your aid and succour. As he wants to die—as he must die—then shoot him at once and put him out of his misery. In doing this, you are but acting humanely to a dying but still ferocious |288| animal in the guise of a man. You are not taking a life needlessly, but in all probability saving a better one; and as the troops pick their way over the field of battle, another bullet should be put into the “dead” and “wounded” from a distance a yard beyond the point to which a dervish can throw a spear, to prevent any more accidents. The number of soldiers killed by “dead” and “wounded” dervishes is great enough already, and it would be criminal to add to it. Have you no thought for some English mother mourning the loss of her brave lad, who threw away his life in attending to a wounded dervish, when she had been looking forward to his return as the hero of the village? How many cottages in England have been made desolate by the hands of “dead” and “wounded” dervishes?
If none of the foregoing suggestions are acceptable, then let each correspondent accompanying an expedition into the heart of Africa declare whether he votes for first aid to the wounded dervishes or not. If he does not, then let him hold his peace if he sees things which he would not expect to come across, were he witnessing the sequel to a fight between civilized peoples. If he declares for first aid, then give him a packet of bandages and a water-bottle, and let him put his principles into practice, while his more enlightened brother knights of the pen tag on to their despatches his obituary notice.
CHAPTER XXIV BACK TO CIVILIZATION
I must leave it to my readers to try and imagine what my sensations were as I sailed away from Omdurman on the first stage of my journey to civilization and liberty. Remembering the reason which I gave my wife, manager, and friends, when I was begged to abandon my projected journey into Kordofan, knowing that others knew how I had comported myself before my captors and Abdullahi, I was conscious that I had nothing to be ashamed of in the production of a worse than useless saltpetre, which I could easily have refined—but the real refinement of which I prevented. Nor was I ashamed of having designed impossible machines for the manufacture of powder and cartridges, in order to keep out of that terrible Saier; nor of the wilful destruction of so much good material for their construction, especially as there were living witnesses to bear me out. Thinking, therefore, that the small, very small, risk I ran in the collecting of information to send to the advancing armies might have been appreciated, I built up on my journey what proved to be a house of cards to be blown down by |290| a breath as soon as I reached Cairo. I was much disappointed in the reception awaiting me; so also was every other released captive, and not a few Mahdists. Perhaps I am to blame for delaying at Berber for the purpose I have “admitted” in my chapter “Divorced and Married,” when my arrival had been announced by a certain train; but I have been punished for this, though even now I am too uncivilized to feel ashamed of the action, or to appreciate the justice of the strictures passed upon me in consequence.
When at last I did reach Cairo, it was but to learn that although I had taken as “jokes” the compliments which I received on my way down, on the “manufacture of gunpowder with which to kill English soldiers”—on the “‘damned clever’ design and construction of the forts to oppose the advance of the gunboats,” on my “smartness in galloping away from the field when I saw it was all over for Mahdieh, and reaching the prison just in time to get on my chains again before the Sirdar put in his appearance”—yet these, and a great many other tales, were implicitly believed in. Moreover, they had lost nothing in being translated into the many languages spoken in Cairo, which include every language of Europe, with a few of the East.
It was heartrending to me, after what I had gone through, to return to my own flesh and blood to be spurned and shunned as the incarnation of everything despicable in a man. I, who had defied my captors and had looked for death, wished for it more now that I was amongst my own people; but fortunately the persecution I was subjected to, added to my change of |291| life, caused me to break down completely, and when I recovered from my delirium it was to find myself in the hands of a few friends. Do not think that I had worried myself over what was mere idle gossip; all the charges were made in sincerity, and this owing to the influential quarters whence they were emanating.
A few days after receiving the generous offer of my publishers, I was told that I was a prisoner of war, and as such was debarred from entering into any engagements; moreover, my experiences were said to be the property of the War Office. Later on, I was told that, in consideration of the subscriptions raised by a newspaper group in England for the purpose of effecting my escape some years ago, I was to write my experiences for the benefit of the subscribers. Then, after keeping me waiting weeks for a reply, they offered me £100—a sum not sufficient to pay the guides already in Cairo—and asked me to repay them the moneys they had lent me while in prison. When in reply to this offer I pointed out the ruined condition I am in, and offered to repay the subscribers the monies spent from the money I am to receive for my book, I was first threatened with an injunction upon the book, and then with the publication of “interesting” disclosures (?) concerning me.
When H.R.H. Duke Johann Albrecht, the Regent of Mecklenburg, graciously writes to me himself, instructing me to call at the German Consul-General’s, in Cairo, for some money sent there to “give me a new start in life,” I am met, when I do present myself, with accusations of ingratitude and broken |292| engagements towards people whose names I had never heard of. However, these people wrote disclaimers to the Times, saying that they knew nothing of the claims made against me in their names; yet, in spite of the disclaimers, the money was impounded for about five months in all, and then some claims paid from it, but on whose account I am still ignorant.
While all these charges are being levelled at me, I am warned that if I dare contradict anything published formerly concerning myself or Soudan affairs, certain correspondence will be communicated to the London Press; yet what am I to do but contradict them wherever I can find a scrap of evidence to support my contradiction? Surely I cannot be expected to confirm such reports in the face of the threats made verbally and in the columns of a newspaper, especially as I and mine must remain the social outcasts we have been since my release, until my narrative appears. I am writing more in grief than in anger; these are all subjects I should have preferred not to mention in my narrative, and I am touching on them as lightly as is possible, but as others have chosen to publish them, by keeping silence I should be doing myself an injustice. My hand or tongue has been forced, therefore those who have taken the initial action against me must be responsible for the inevitable result which will follow when, questioned as to the foregoing by those entitled to ask for the evidence, I hand over for publication the whole of the correspondence. For the public, having been led to form opinions about me on the strength of the reports and explanations printed, have the right to |293| know the whole truth before pronouncing a second judgment; but my narrative ought not to be burdened with such a voluminous correspondence. Surely a kind Providence kept watch over the few documents which I have been fortunate enough to find after all these years, and which are of such value to me in substantiating my story.