As usual the enterprising firm of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son came in for the principal part of the river transport work. All their steamers, except those engaged in the postal service, were requisitioned by the Egyptian Government, and, deprived of their handsome fittings and luxurious accommodation, now figured as troopships between Belianeh and Assouan. Between the 21st and 26th March, these steamers shipped from the former place no less than 4,500 men, besides 750 animals and an enormous quantity of stores. A detachment of the Connaught Rangers was stationed at Belianch in charge of the store depôt established there.
It should be mentioned that the 9th Soudanese Battalion, forming part of the Souakim garrison, marched from Kosseir, on the Red Sea, to Keneh, on the Nile, following the route across the desert taken by General Baird and his army in 1801.
Meanwhile Colonel Hunter with his frontier force moved on to Akasheh, which for some time past had been the advanced post of the Dervishes, and occupied it without opposition.
The Egyptian troops now concentrated as rapidly as possible at the various posts between Wady Halfa and Akasheh, the Staffordshire Regiment being left to garrison the former place.
The railway was now being pushed forward, and on 24th May it was completed to a point three miles beyond Ambigol, sixty-three miles south of Wady Halfa.
To guard against raids on either flank in the proposed further advance, the west bank of the Nile was patrolled by native irregulars, and the important post of Murad Wells had its garrison of Ababdeh "friendlies" strengthened by some two or three companies from one of the Egyptian battalions.
The post of Murad Wells, situated about half-way between Korosko and Abu Hamid, was by far the most important of the desert posts. No Dervish descent upon the east bank of the river was possible unless these wells had been first secured; consequently there had been repeated struggles for their possession. Their guardianship had at the time now referred to been intrusted to the Ababdeh Arabs in the pay of the Government. The last attack on the wells was that made by the Dervishes as lately as November, 1893, but which was repulsed with severe loss. The chief of the tribe, Saleh Bey, who was in command of the defending force, lost his life on this occasion, but was succeeded by his elder brother, Ahmed Bey, an equally capable leader.
On the news of Hunter's advance to Akasheh, a younger brother, Abd-el-Azim, on the 11th April made a bold reconnaissance to the south. Crossing the desert with a party of his Ababdehs, he struck the Nile about forty miles south of Abu Hamid, and then continuing some eighty miles further along the river, he informed the people of the Egyptian advance. They received the news everywhere with the greatest delight, and expressed their joy at the prospect of being delivered from the Khalifa's reign of terror. Abd-el-Azim was able to obtain some useful information of the Dervish movements. At Abu Hamid there were only about 400 fighting men, but Berber was held by 6,000 of the Jehadia, Jaalin and Baggara tribes.
On the 1st of May the first fight of the season came off in the neighbourhood of Akasheh. About noon 240 of the Egyptian cavalry, under Major Burn Murdoch, when some four miles from Akasheh, suddenly came across 300 mounted Baggara, with a further force of about 1,000 men on foot, drawn up behind them. The odds being too great, the cavalry was ordered to retire. Seeing this movement, the Dervish horsemen, advancing amid a cloud of dust, charged down upon the rear troop just at the moment that the cavalry had entered a narrow defile. Several of the men were speared and stabbed in the back before the main body had time to wheel and in their turn charge the assailants. This they quickly did in dashing style, and then ensued a hand-to-hand fight which lasted about twenty minutes, at the end of which the Dervishes wheeled about and galloped off to the rear of the spearmen on foot. The ground not admitting of another charge, the cavalry then dismounted and opened fire on the enemy. This was kept up till at 3 p.m., just as the 11th Soudanese Battalion was arriving in support, the Dervishes retired, to the great satisfaction of the small Egyptian force, which with jaded horses, and suffering intensely from want of water, had been fighting continuously for three hours under a burning sun.
The cavalry had two killed and ten wounded, against eighteen killed and eighty wounded on the enemy's side.