With Wauchope's Brigade in front, the infantry and artillery crossed the ridge sloping down to the river. On the left was the village of Kerreri, guarded by an ancient redoubt, and here we imagined would be the site for the camp. But orders were given to continue the march, so we trudged more than a mile farther, to the deserted hamlet of El Genuaia. Without further ado, mimosa branches were cut and a zeriba was formed on a small scale round the village. The heliograph from the top of Gebel Surgham was flashing incessantly, and keeping the Sirdar well informed of the whereabouts and progress of the enemy's advance. The Lancers too came trotting in, having done their best to delay the onset of the Dervishes. "We expect," said Colonel Wingate to me, "to be attacked in half an hour." Meanwhile fatigue parties dragged the bushes on the southern face of our zeriba much farther away in the direction of Omdurman, and the result was a vast zeriba extending along the Nile from El Genuaia to a small village called—so I gathered from the maps—Geren Nebi. The length of the rough semi-circle must have been over nine hundred yards. Nearer Geren Nebi it enclosed a number of mud-huts, which were ultimately used for hospital purposes; and between this part of the zeriba and our original site, there was a gentle declivity terminating in a small inlet of the Nile, with thick black mud along its margin. A little beyond this inlet, towards the south, the plain shelved down to the river, and within the hollow thus formed the majority of the baggage animals and native servants were posted. The cover thus afforded must have been excellent, for I do not think that a single baggage animal was killed throughout the fight. On the extreme left of our line lay a gap between the end of the zeriba and the river, left purposely, I presume, in order to admit the cavalry. Not to go into more detail than needful about the position of our troops—the line began on the left side with the 32nd Field Battery R.A., and an Egyptian battery of twelve-pounder Maxim-Nordenfeldts. Next in order came the two British Brigades with two Maxim batteries, and the remaining two-thirds of the zeriba was held by the various native battalions. Towards the northern side of the zeriba an Egyptian battery was posted on a little mound of sand. The British infantry were protected solely by the zeriba, but in front of the native battalions under Colonels Lewis, Maxwell, and Macdonald ran a shallow trench. Colonel Collinson's brigade was posted as a reserve inside the zeriba some distance to the rear of Macdonald's division.
Ammunition boxes lay in rows behind each company, bayonets had been fixed, and everyone looked eagerly over the plain for a glimpse of the advancing Dervishes. For some reason or other, which has never been adequately explained, the Dervishes did not advance to the attack that afternoon. The Khalifa's army, after marching forward a couple of miles, came to a sudden halt, and subsequently withdrew to its camp for the night. None of the Emirs in the enemy's lines, with the exception of the wily Osman Digna, had had any previous experience of British methods of warfare. Still, some at least of the Dervish leaders must have passed a night of anxiety, full of gloomy anticipations of coming disaster. The brave Wad-Ed-Nejumi, just before the battle of Toski, addressed the followers whom he had led across the terrible Bayuda desert, and warned them in simple, soldierly words that each one must be prepared on the morrow to meet his Maker. Thoughts such as this were surely, one would think, enough to keep the Khalifa and his generals awake that night with the awful sense of responsibility! Not that the Moslem fighting man, whether of high or low degree, has any fear of death itself. From what I have seen of him in action, I should imagine that the contingency of death never enters into his head as a factor of the fight which need be regarded. Absolutely convinced as he is of a future existence in which bravery and devotion will be rewarded, the Dervish faces the muzzles of Maxim guns with a sword in his hand. It is civilisation which sets Death upon his throne of terror. The greater the sum of life's enjoyments the greater the dread of losing them, and as the nervous organism of mankind becomes relaxed and softened by the æsthetic and sentimental influences of social progress, physical pain is accentuated in reality, and dreaded all the more in anticipation. The ordinary belief in a future life amongst Christian peoples is, for the most part, so nebulous and indefinite that it fails altogether as a mainspring of action amid the risks of battle. Thus, unless other sentimental or utilitarian considerations can step in to fill the gap, e.g. patriotism, or the preservation of hearth and home, the Christian is invariably at a disadvantage in contending with his Moslem enemy. Look at the spectacle presented by the Ottoman Empire, in which millions of Christians have been dominated for centuries by a small but valiant minority of Osmanlis.
When it was known that the Khalifa's army had postponed the attack, a general feeling of disappointment pervaded the whole zeriba. The men, both white and black, had been as keen as possible; we had all been waiting for the enemy, and he hadn't come! We were robbed of our show, and it was positively annoying to hear, instead of the warlike commands which had prefaced the afternoon, the pacific order for fatigue parties to leave the zeriba and cut wood for cooking purposes! What awful bathos! From Khalifa to kitchen utensils, from battle and murder to bully beef and biscuit!
Few of the twenty-three thousand men who passed that night within the zeriba are likely to forget it. We felt certain of a battle on the morrow, for all doubts as to whether the Khalifa would stand and fight, or flee away into the uttermost parts of the Sudan, were now set at rest. The two armies actually lay encamped within five miles of each other on an almost dead level! The whole of our force, from the Sirdar downwards, was fully conscious of its strength and its ability to resist the Dervish assault in the morning. But what if the Khalifa resolved after all to attack our zeriba under the cover of night? When one remembers the thinness of our extended line, our miserably inadequate defences, the stealthiness and rapidity of the Dervish infantry, the impossibility of accurate fire in the darkness, the preponderating numbers of the enemy and their splendid valour,—when one thinks of these and other things which may not be discussed coram populo, one cannot be sufficiently thankful that the Khalifa refrained from attacking us on that memorable night! Had such an assault taken place, I feel absolutely certain that of the brave fellows who in the morning advanced unflinchingly against the most terrific fire of the century's warfare, a vast number would have broken through the zeriba in the darkness. The result would have been terrible beyond words! The cut and thrust of the Dervish sword and spear, with the cross fire of our own men, might have ended in a fulfilment of the Mahdi's prophecy, instead of a decisive and almost bloodless victory for the British arms!
With the exception of sentries, who were doubled, the troops were allowed to sleep, though their rest was broken by several alarms during the night. Two friendly Arabs had been sent out beyond Geren Nebi with orders, in the event of a Dervish onset, to raise the peculiar trilling cry which one hears in a higher key from Sudanese women. Suddenly the trilling sound was distinctly heard, the men were instantly roused, and our spies came racing in at full speed, and jumped clean over the zeriba! They pretended that the Khalifa's army was close upon their heels, but no Dervishes appeared. In all probability these worthless creatures had been alarmed by some "sniping" shots from the river bank, or else thought it would be more agreeable inside than outside the zeriba, and so resolved to get back and spend a comfortable night. The alarm over, our men lay down once more; and now a note of comedy was added to the anxiety, for in the dark a camel, with its forelegs tied together, suddenly ran amok through the camp, leaping with clumsy bounds over the officers' angaribs, and causing much confusion and laughter.
During the earlier part of the evening an order had been passed round that all lights were to be extinguished in five minutes; but, as usual, a number of people were selfish enough to disobey orders, and incur the risk of Dervish sniping, rather than get into bed by starlight. As a matter of fact, a number of shots were fired into the camp from the Surgham ridge, and some desultory sniping from the bushes beyond Geren Nebi sent occasional bullets whistling over the sleeping camp.
Before I fell asleep, I was astonished to see Cross walking up from the bank. He seemed much better, and said that he had been terribly worried all day by the thought that, after all, he might not be present at the battle. The floating hospital in which he lay was moored at an island opposite the zeriba, and it seemed doubtful at one time whether the barge would be moved over to our side. "If it hadn't," said Cross, "I had made up my mind to swim across the river to you."