After this skirmish, the Dervish force retired to Gemai, which it adopted as a permanent outpost, the main body remaining at Sarras. The idea of a direct attack by the Mahdists on Wady Halfa seems to have been for the moment abandoned.
After a time the difficulty of keeping a large body, like that at Sarras, supplied with food became apparent to their leaders. Small-pox, too, broke out in their camp, and numbers of deaths occurred daily. Under these untoward circumstances, and with the continued troubles in Darfur on his hands, the Khalifa was once more obliged to postpone the execution of his project of invasion.
On the 4th June, 1888, the last detachment of British troops, viz., one company of the Welsh Regiment, was withdrawn from Assouan, and the protection of the frontier was intrusted solely to the Egyptian army.
The skirmish in which Colonel Wodehouse defeated the enemy was followed by a series of desultory raids, not only in the vicinity of Wady Halfa, but at many points between that place and Assouan, raids which spread terror in the hearts of the villagers. The Egyptian troops, by establishing posts along the Nile and by patrolling the river by gunboats, did their best to repress and punish these forays. One of the most serious of these was the midnight capture and recapture of the Egyptian fort of Khor Musa on the 29th August, 1888. At this date, the Dervish force was still occupying Sarras, which had become a sort of central point for the raiders, and from this point the attack on the fort was directed. The fort itself was a native house on the river bank converted into a fortification.
In the darkness of the night, some 500 Dervishes arrived close to the fort, and a small party, detached from the main body, crept quietly up under the river bank unperceived until close under the walls. The sentry at the south-western corner, hearing a noise, challenged, and was immediately shot. The corporal of the guard, hearing the report of a rifle and a shout outside the walls, at once opened the western gate on the river, and was shot down. The assailants then streamed through the gate and killed the whole of the guard. The garrison, suddenly roused, turned out, and finding the south end of the fort full of the enemy, fought their way into the northern section. Here, for two hours, they made a stubborn resistance, firing from every available spot, though without much effect, the enemy being protected by the intervening walls. The defence, thus far, had been conducted by a native major, who, on the first alarm, had telephoned to Wady Halfa for assistance. The news reached Colonel Wodehouse at 11.30 p.m., and, without delay, he despatched reinforcements by train, as well as a detachment of cavalry as a guard. The gunboat Metemmeh also got under way, and at 1.30 a.m. opened fire on the portion of the fort held by the enemy.
Lieutenant Machell, who arrived with the troops, posted his men in such a way as to prevent any possibility of the enemy escaping, and with fifty men crept stealthily round, until they arrived at the western gate, which had been left open. Here his men, rapidly forming up, fired a volley straight into the mass of the enemy collected inside. The latter, completely surprised, attempted to climb the wall, but only to be met at the point of the bayonet by the men waiting below to receive them. Machell then dashed in through the gate and, forming his men into a rough line, repulsed the assailants, who, finding their retreat cut off, fought with the energy of despair. Soon all within the adjoining inclosure were either killed or wounded, and the fort was again in the possession of the Egyptians. The bodies of eighty-five, mostly Baggara and Jaalin Arabs, were found in and around the fort, and many others fell in the line of retreat. The Egyptian loss was also severe, amounting to nineteen killed and thirty-four wounded.[145]
The reverse sustained by the Dervishes, on this occasion, was a serious discouragement to their leaders, whilst, at the same time, it gave increased confidence to the riverain population.