Meanwhile, Osman Digna's followers amused themselves cutting the telegraph wires and damaging the railway works as opportunities offered.
They also made nightly attacks on Graham's camp. In order to check this, a series of automatic mines, to explode when trodden on, was placed outside the British lines. It does not appear that this measure answered the purpose intended, although an accidental explosion of one of the mines resulted in the loss of a promising young officer, Lieutenant Askwith, of the Royal Engineers.
Osman Digna's exact position at this period seems to have been somewhat of a puzzle to Graham, but on the 22nd he was able to telegraph that Osman was for the time without any large following, and that his people were greatly discouraged by their losses in the various engagements, and also in want of food.
The question of withdrawing the expedition now arose. Graham was most unwilling to retire without having achieved something decisive, and on the 26th he telegraphed that he strongly recommended crushing Osman before the expedition should be withdrawn. He added, that with Osman crushed, the country would be at peace, and the native allies safe; whereas if the British force were withdrawn he would soon become as strong as ever, would threaten Souakim, and punish the friendly tribes.
In the beginning of May Lord Wolseley arrived at Souakim and from that moment the question of what was to be done was taken out of Graham's hands.
The Government had made up its mind, so far as such an operation was possible, not to go on with the railway to Berber at all events for the present, and the inutility of keeping the expedition in Souakim in face of the policy of abandoning the Soudan, referred to in the following chapter, generally, naturally struck Lord Wolseley.
On the 4th May he telegraphed to Lord Hartington that if it was positively decided not to push forward the railway as part of the campaign against the Mahdi at Khartoum, he advised the immediate embarkation of the Guards, the navvies, and Australians, leaving only the Indian Contingent and one British battalion for a garrison at Souakim. He added, on the 5th, that the heat was increasing, and the men of the expedition would soon become sickly; that he did not think the further operations wished for by Graham were, in face of the hot weather, desirable. Among other suggestions he proposed to the Government to send back to England the ships laden with railway material, and to take up the railway before the troops fell back.
This despatch suggests the idea that Wolseley was beginning to get a little tired of giving advice to a Government which was always asking his opinion and never acting upon it.
On the 8th he was instructed that the Government adhered to the decision to adopt the proposal for defence of the frontier in his despatch of 14th April, but that the Government did not approve of his suggestion to take up the railway and ship off the plant; but that he should arrange to hold the line, pending consideration whether it would be carried onwards.
This last despatch was too much for Wolseley, who appears to have thought it hard enough to have to carry out a policy of which he disapproved, without having the initiation of it attributed to himself; and in his despatch of the 11th he replied, "What you term my proposals, were the military dispositions recommended in order to give effect to your policy at Souakim, to stop the railway, and send away as many troops as could be spared for service elsewhere. If the garrison here is to be seriously reduced, the railway must be either taken up or abandoned." He added, "Unless you have some clearly defined Soudan policy to initiate, any military operations, such as the extension of the railway would entail, would be to throw away uselessly valuable lives."