Many of the dead bodies in the field had rosaries round their necks, usually made of box or sandal wood. Nobody paid much attention to these ornaments, but from one point of view they are interesting. Was the use of a row of beads for religious purposes borrowed from the Christians by the Moslems, or vice versâ? Another curious relic was an insulator from a Dervish field telegraph, which had been worked between a point near Gebel Surgham and Omdurman during the battle. Many of the dead Emirs wore watches, one of which was marked "Dent, London."
Our soldiers seemed to thoroughly enjoy the rest at Omdurman. They had probably some very quaint ideas of our geographical surroundings and the reason for our presence in the Sudan. On 4th September some companies of Sudanese who had been sent up the river in pursuit of the Khalifa were seen returning in the distance with a long string of Dervish prisoners. There was great excitement amongst the British troops; whole battalions ran wildly over the sand expecting to catch a glimpse of the Dervish leader, and I heard one Tommy Atkins say to his comrade, "'Urry up, Bill, come along; they've cotched the bloody Khee-dive!"
In addition to Dervish prisoners who were captured by the active Sudanese, hundreds came in voluntarily and surrendered themselves. Many were wounded more or less seriously, but of the rest a large number were enrolled as soldiers of the Khedive! What amazing versatility! On one day the Dervish rushes boldly against our shells and bullets, and on the next he joins us as a comrade in arms! Some of the French papers declared ungenerously that the Sirdar had armed these Dervish allies in order to dispatch them against Major Marchand. Such an act would under the circumstances have been legitimate, and had these newly enrolled soldiers of the Khedive been given a free hand, "the evacuation of Fashoda" would have been ancient history by this time! But of course no such intention ever entered the Sirdar's head. The brave Marchand certainly deserved a better fate than to be wiped out by ex-Dervishes.
The prisoners were released from their fetters on the night of the battle. Amongst them were a number of jet black Abyssinians, survivors of the sanguinary battle of Galabat. I saw Charles Neufeld, and he looked very little the worse for his stay at Omdurman. A great deal of English sympathy has been wasted on this person. The harrowing stories we have read in the papers of the poor captive languishing in hopeless captivity are sheer nonsense. On two separate occasions Neufeld had the chance of escape, for a clever and courageous Arab called Oman had been dispatched by the Intelligence Department to rescue the captive. Neufeld, however, refused to leave Omdurman unless he was accompanied by a black woman, with whom he lived. This was obviously out of the question. So Father Rossignoli was rescued instead, and brought safely to Assouan.
An infinitely more pathetic case was that of the two Austrian Sisters who had been compelled to marry Greeks. One of these, who was childless, returned to Cairo; but the other, who had borne her husband three children, elected—so I heard—to remain for good at Omdurman. The poor woman felt that she could never face her co-religionists at home after her vows of celibacy had been broken. I remember as I walked along the bazaar on the morning after the fight I noticed a European woman in Arab dress standing amongst a crowd of natives. She looked wistfully and sadly at the British as they passed, and I always regret that I did not speak to her.
Slatin Pasha soon returned from his pursuit of the Khalifa. The Egyptian cavalry had followed the tracks of the fugitive for thirty miles up the river, but as the horses were dead beat and no forage could be landed from the gunboat accompanying the pursuit, owing to a long stretch of marshy ground, the squadrons were compelled to return without the Khalifa. I happened to be strolling past Slatin's tent at the time, and he called me in and told me how terribly disappointed he was at the failure of the pursuit. He was kept very busy all the time we were at Omdurman by continual visits from many old Dervish friends and acquaintances. One day when I was with him a handsome old Arab with a white beard came into the tent, and sinking down without a word, bent his head over Slatin's shoulder and wept. At length he found words to tell us that his only son had been killed in the fighting. "Oh, Hassan," said Slatin, and could get no further—his kind heart was too full of pity; and as he placed his hand on to his old friend's shoulder and tried to soothe his sorrow, I turned away, unable to bear the sight of the father's grief.
As Cross grew no better, and there was little else to do in Omdurman, I asked Colonel Wingate to allow us a passage on the first gunboat leaving for the North. Accordingly, on the morning of the 6th, Cross, René Bull, and myself embarked on the Metemmeh, and steamed away down the river. Nobody was sorry to say good-bye to the repulsive streets of Omdurman.
Two barges packed with the rank and file of the Warwicks were lashed to either side of the Metemmeh, which carried on board Colonel Forbes and the officers of the battalion, together with Lieutenant Clerk of the 21st Lancers. We were all in excellent spirits, and fully expected to reach the Atbara in about thirty hours. As steam and current bore us rapidly past the battlefield in the twilight, the vultures circling over the distant plain and the broken zeriba by the river's bank were the only visible signs which remained to tell of our momentous victory.
We were not destined to reach the Atbara in thirty hours! The sun had set, and the reis had been advised to tie up to the banks for the night; but the obstinate fellow denied the necessity of any stoppage for another hour or two, so we went tearing down the stream at a tremendous pace. Dinner was just over—a curious meal, supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions of tinned meats, rice, jams, etc.—when, without a moment's warning, a tremendous shock sent everything and everybody sprawling over the deck. Loud cries of "We are going over" came from the river, and through the semi-darkness one could see that the troop barge had been wrenched from its lashings by the shock, and was heeling over in a terrible manner. Everybody on board the gunboat shouted "Sit down," "Keep still"; and it was very fine to see how the soldiers immediately obeyed their officers, though for the moment they fully expected to be capsized into the flooded stream. By good luck the detached barge righted itself and remained fixed in midstream, about thirty yards from the gunboat and the other barge.
Nobody quite knew where we were or what had happened, but as it seemed certain that we were not likely to go much further that night, we all made preparations for going to sleep. The upper deck was quite a small affair, and the space at our disposal was curtailed by the presence of a large table and a number of camp chairs. Over these few square yards of deck we had to dispose the recumbent forms of some twenty-six human beings. The result was a sort of Chinese puzzle. I had always heard that Nature, when she had any close packing to do, employed the beautiful simplicity of the hexagon, and suggested a trial of this system; but the theory, owing, probably, to dissimilarities in our lengths and breadths, would not work at all. We lay in wild disorder, but so tightly wedged together that it was impossible to move about when one had finally secured one's berth in this casual ward! A friend's boots gently reposed upon my pillow all night, while my own feet were thrust against the ribs of a transverse form below.