True enough, on either side of Gebel Surgham, and then on towards the western slopes of Kerreri, line upon line of Dervish infantry and cavalry appeared. Gigantic banners fluttered aloft, borne on lofty flagstaffs. The rising sun glinted on sword blades and spearheads innumerable, and as the mighty host drew nearer, black heads and arms became visible amongst the white of the massed gibbehs. And now, too, a dense volume of sound came rolling over the desert as the fanatical Arabs raised continuous shouts of defiance, mingled with chants to Allah and the Prophet—their final battle-cry before the inevitable death awaiting them—the veritable requiem song of Mahdism! In the clear morning air the pageant was truly magnificent, a splendid panorama of some forty thousand barbarians moving forward all undismayed to do battle with the largest army which Great Britain has placed in the field for forty years. So marvellous a picture—once seen, never to be seen again—must surely have impressed itself indelibly upon the memory of all who witnessed it!
Our men stood unmoved within the zeriba. Suddenly a cloud of white smoke massed itself along the enemy's front, and one realised that the Dervishes had opened fire on us. The Khalifa's forces possessed eighteen thousand Martinis and a still larger number of Remingtons, captured from the ill-fated army of Hicks Pasha and the various garrisons of the Sudan. But as none of the Dervishes understood the sighting of their rifles, and many of them had actually knocked off the back-sights as a useless encumbrance, their opening volleys at over two thousand yards, being fired point blank, were useless. They simply wasted ammunition; for most of the bullets of course struck the sand hundreds of yards in front of us, and comparatively few got as far as the zeriba. No response came from our silent ranks for another five minutes. Then at 6.20 a roar came from the batteries on the left, and a shell shrieked through the air and burst about twenty yards in front of the formidable line advancing against the southern face of the zeriba. Almost simultaneously the other batteries opened fire on the dense masses of the enemy advancing round the western slopes of Surgham, and still farther away towards the ridge of Kerreri.
The battle had now commenced in dire earnest. As the enemy rapidly advanced, bullets of all sizes and shapes soon began to whistle over the zeriba from the Martinis, Remingtons, and nondescript weapons of the enemy. A battery, too, which they had placed on the western slope of Surgham, fired at the portion of our line held by the Camerons and Seaforths. More than forty rounds were fired from these Dervish field guns, but the shells did little, if any, damage, as, although the fuses were beautifully timed and the projectiles burst at an excellent height above the ground, the range was too long, and they all fell short. Moreover, after the fight some fragments of these shells were picked up and found to be made of very thin brass casing; so that the damage they could have inflicted, even had they reached our lines, must have been inconsiderable. As it was, they burst like maroons at the Crystal Palace, with a loud report and little else.
Our own artillery had very soon found the range accurately. The British fifteen-pounders and the short Maxim-Nordenfeldts of the Egyptian gunners were admirably worked, and the precision of the shell fire was marvellous. Scores of shrapnel burst just over the advancing line, and other shells struck the ground under their feet, tearing huge gaps in the ranks and throwing up clouds of earth and stones. The division of the enemy nearest to the zeriba was advancing over the ridge between Surgham and the river, and with a good field glass I could see the fearful havoc played by the fire of our guns. Beneath the descending shower of bullets from a well-placed shrapnel, a little crowd of men would fall torn and bleeding upon the sand, and sometimes a shell splinter would crash into a horse and hurl the animal with its rider to the ground. Despite this awful fire, the brave Dervishes came steadily on down the slope, though the line of their march was thickly strewn with dead and wounded. At length, to complete their discomfiture, the enemy in this part of the field came within long range of the rifles of the Guards, the Warwicks, and other battalions lining the more southern face of the zeriba. As withering volleys were poured into them, in addition to the incessant shell fire, the remnants of this brave division seemed to realise the hopelessness of a direct advance, and swerved to their left without any disorder to join their comrades who had advanced round Surgham from the west.
The main attack upon our position had now fully developed, and it was at this juncture that the Egyptian cavalry and the Camel Corps regained the shelter of their comrades' trenches after their lucky escape from Sheikh Ed-Din's spearmen. Thousands upon thousands of Dervish infantry and cavalry advanced all along the line in a rough semicircle, with frenzied shouts and a continuous but irregular fire upon the western face of the zeriba. Towards the left centre the Khalifa's black ensign stood out above the white gibbehs and red sashes of his bodyguard—that heroic and devoted band who rallied to the last round their leader's flag, and died to a man in its defence!
The din of battle was terrific. The roar of the artillery, the shriek of shells, the crisp volleys of the Lee-Metfords, and the unceasing rat-tat-tat of the deadly Maxims were so deafening that it was only occasionally in brief intervals that one realised that bullets by hundreds were flying around us.
Other proofs, however, of this were soon in evidence. In every direction the medical service men were to be seen carrying the dead and wounded on stretchers to the rear. As I walked across the zeriba with the Rifle Brigade, who were ordered to reinforce the line facing west, three men were hit by Dervish bullets, and immediately afterwards I saw a corporal of the Camerons shot clean through the head. As I said above, comparatively few bullets were heard, but every now and then a man fell to the ground. Colonel Money's horse was shot under him; he secured another mount, and in a few minutes his second horse rolled over, pierced by another Dervish bullet. Shortly afterwards, as I was watching the Maxim fire, a Highlander suddenly fell over two yards to my left. He was, I think, shot through the upper part of the arm; but what amused me was the self-conscious, shamefaced look which came over his face when the stretcher arrived. He looked sheepishly round to see if anybody noticed it, and was evidently quite ashamed of being carried off!
It was interesting to hear various occasional remarks which were made as flying bullets whistled overhead or made a splash in the loose sand of the zeriba. After a little experience in being under fire the ear gets to appreciate the relative distances of these invisible messengers, but the tendency at first is to imagine that the passing bullet is much nearer to one than it really is. I remember hearing a young soldier remark as a bullet whizzed over us, "By Jove, that nearly got me on the head!" whereas the missile was yards up in the air. It is, indeed, always satisfactory under such circumstances to note the whizz of bullets through the air; for, of course, if you hear the missile, it can't do you any harm. Some of the Dervish bullets played the oddest tricks. My friend, Captain Maclachlan of the Camerons, suddenly felt his side drenched with water, and, looking down, found that his water-bottle had been pierced from side to side. I found that this little anecdote had already reached England when I arrived, and had, moreover, been duly improved upon; for an old lady in the train spoke in sympathetic tones of the providential escape of the poor invalid officer who had been saved from a bullet as he lay in bed by the hot water bottle applied to his side! Another bullet passed through an ammunition pouch, cutting eight cartridges in half just between the lead and the cordite without exploding a single one. In another case, a Dervish bullet bored a hole through the helmet of the man in front, tore the shoulder-strap from the man behind, then wounded a sergeant in the leg, and finally dropped harmlessly on the toes of a private in the rear.
Between the two Highland battalions was posted a battery of Maxims under Captain Smeaton, whom I had seen in Crete a year and a half ago. Just behind the Maxims a detachment of Engineers did excellent work in organising the ammunition supply. One is always glad to hear the conduct of this fine corps appreciated, for frequently the sappers, from the nature of their work, are not sufficiently noticed in the literature of our "little wars." They did much excellent work at the Atbara, with scarcely a word of subsequent recognition from the Press; and here in the Omdurman zeriba they were posted in the middle of the fighting line, and took their chance as well as anyone else.
The Maxims poured forth an unceasing stream of bullets. A belt of cartridges was fixed, and instantly began to glide through the breech mechanism; then ta-ta-ta-ta-ta—the belt was empty and thrown aside to make way for another. It was not difficult to see how the gun was doing its terrible work, for if the aim became unduly depressed, a screen of dust and sand was thrown up in front of the enemy's line, and the only thing needed was a trifling elevation of the barrel.