Lord Wolseley and the Headquarters Staff went down stream from Korti on the 24th March, and having cleared up the camp, I followed next day. From a mistake in the execution of some orders I was obliged to ride 70 miles in the hot sun, and thus brought on a recurrence of diarrhœa, from which I had previously suffered from the 23rd of February to the 9th of March, and which clung to me so persistently that I was never free from pain and inconvenience until I got on board a ship in the Suez Canal on my way to England. Throughout March the doctors urged me to go down the river, but anticipating an Autumn campaign, and with the promise of a command, I evaded compliance till May, when the doctors became more insistent, and I less capable of resistance.
My health improved at Debbeh, where I commanded about 6400 men, spread out on the bank of the Nile from Old Dongola to Hamdab. The men were employed in hutting themselves, and the work was certainly beneficial in the trying climate. It was generally cool, for the Sudan, from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., but occasionally even at that hour the thermometer stood at 77°. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, unless there happened to be a dust storm to add to our discomfort, there was as a rule not a breath of air, and even lizards and flies clustered under camel saddles to avoid the sun.
While two soldiers were working together one of them grumbled at the intensity of the heat, and was rebuked by his comrade, saying, “What is the use of your grousing? Don’t you know there is only a bit of brown paper between us and hell?” The grumbler retorted, “And I expect that bit of paper is scorched.” The Nile, always a rest for our parched eyes, at the end of March showed half a mile of mud between the banks, and little more than 100 yards of water opposite to my tent.
The soldiers had been on half rations of groceries for some weeks, and now we ran out of sugar. Officers scrambled for a 1-lb. tin of cocoa and milk at six shillings, while invalided officers sent down the river sold alcohol at thirty shillings a bottle.
The spirits of the troops had recovered from the depressing effect of the failure to save Gordon, and, in spite of all discomforts, remained good as a rule, though the difference of feeling in the camps varied according to the temperament of the general in command. Major-General the Honourable J. Dormer[281] wrote to me from Tani on the 16th of April, “Everyone here is cheery and contented, there is no grumbling.” This, however, was primarily due to his own buoyant spirits. Two Sheiks rode into the General’s camp with a message from the Mahdi, exhorting him and his followers to submit, and thus save their bodies in this world, and their souls in the next, by embracing the Mohammedan faith. The Sheik talked of the wondrous powers of the Mahdi, and when Dormer differed with him, said, “Well, can you do the marvellous things the Mahdi performs, such as praying for rain and ensure its falling?” Dormer, like all of us, knew that the Mahdi only prayed for rain when his barometer was falling, and having himself but one eye, he turned his back to the Sheiks, and taking out his glass eye he threw it up in the air and caught it, saying, “Can your Mahdi do that?” The Sheiks turned and ran without another word.
On the 31st March I handed over the command of the Egyptian Army to Sir Francis Grenfell, who became Sirdar. I had overworked myself for two and a half years, spending £1600 of my capital, and missed all chance of joining in the fights near Suakin in 1884. His Highness the Khedive wrote me some very gracious letters, and sent me the Cordon of the Medjidie, but he could not forget how Arabi and the Egyptian soldiers had treated him in 1882, and never trusted the Fellaheen soldiery again. During my two and a half years’ command he never gave them a word of praise.
I greatly admired the ability of our Consul-General, Sir Evelyn Baring,[282] a part of whose work I had shared, and was gratified by the feeling that my esteem for him was reciprocated by that singularly undemonstrative Briton.
The Commander-in-Chief, on the motion of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, was pleased to record his approbation of my efforts in endeavouring to create an Egyptian Army. The real pleasure to me was the expression of regard I received from the band of officers who came under my command in January 1883. As I wrote in my farewell order: “He believes no body of officers have ever worked with more unremitting devotion.”
Lord Wolseley’s opinion of our work during the campaign was favourable.[283]
