Send-off from York
The regiment was at the time camped out for summer quarters at Strensall camp, about five miles from York. On the evening of a hot July day, when Colonel Wauchope was to leave for the Soudan, there was an open mess among the officers, and the health and prosperity of their departing colonel was enthusiastically drunk. It was arranged that he was to go south by the midnight train at York, and as the evening hours sped on, the regiment as usual retired to their tents to rest for the night, after tuck of drum. They did not, however, retire to sleep, for no sooner were the wheels of the Colonel's carriage heard than there was a general move. It was a little after twelve o'clock, and the men were stripped and in bed. But in an instant every tent was astir, and like a swarm of bees the whole regiment broke loose. Every tent belched forth its quota of excited men, and without taking time to dress they had surrounded the carriage, cheering, and enthusiastically shaking hands with their departing chief. Many of them, with only their nightshirts on, ran after the carriage a considerable distance, still cheering as they went along! It was such a send-off as few officers ever experienced.
It is a striking testimony to the impression made during these two years upon the community of the city of York by this good Scotsman and his regiment, that at the unveiling of a handsome marble memorial in the Presbyterian Church, Prior Street, on the 26th November 1900, all classes were represented, and the Dean of York gave expression to the thoughts of many when he said that, although he never saw General Wauchope until he came to York, and during his residence there with his regiment it was not very often they met, 'yet there was in some characters a sort of magnetic attraction so that one felt at once drawn to them because they were sterling material, true metal. It would be impossible to be in General Wauchope's company, and be associated in any way with him, or to hear very much about him, without feeling that he was not only a soldier of the Crown but eminently a soldier of the Cross. It was right that his memory should be perpetuated in York, it was right that it should be perpetuated in that house of God which he specially identified himself with, and which specially belonged to his nationality.'
CHAPTER IX
THE SOUDAN—BATTLES OF ATBARA AND OMDURMAN—ARRIVAL HOME—RECEPTION AT NIDDRIE——DEGREE OF LL.D.—PAROCHIAL DUTIES—PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST FOR SOUTH EDINBURGH.
Once more Wauchope found himself on the way to the front for active service, this time back to the scene of his former exploits in the Soudan. Matters there, ever since the withdrawal of the British and Egyptian troops in 1885, when the then all-conquering Mahdi took Khartoum and slew the gallant General Gordon, had gone on from bad to worse. Over-running the whole valley of the Nile, the Egyptian boundary-line had been much circumscribed, and was now fixed as far north as Wady Halfa, the prophet holding almost undisputed sway over the whole Soudan, except that part of it contiguous to the Red Sea in the neighbourhood of Suakim. On the death of the Mahdi in 1885, his tomb at Omdurman became a sanctuary, round which the faithful gathered themselves. Under the sway of his successor, Khalifa Abdullahi of the Baggara tribe, cruelty and oppression ground down with iron hand every neighbouring tribe. Military despotism stamped out commerce, and trade and agriculture; the people were ruined, and slaughter and devastation ruled where formerly there had been prosperity and peace. Even Egypt was not safe from the inroads of the Dervish host, attempts being made several times to invade its borders; but Tokar was their utmost limit. In 1892, Colonel Horatio Herbert Kitchener recaptured that town, but no further attempt was made to regain lost ground till 1896, when that officer, now Major-General and Sirdar, or Commander of the Egyptian army, received orders to advance up the Nile for the reconquest of the Soudan. The days of Egypt's weakness were past, for during the interval between this and Tel-el-Kebir, when the then wretched Egyptian army was smashed to pieces, English officers had been actively licking into shape a new native force. Drill and discipline, combined with growing confidence in their officers, had in those years built up an army able and willing to dare anything. The Sirdar was ready to fight the Khalifa, but he realised that in an invasion of the Soudan the real enemy to be faced was the Soudan itself—'its barrenness which refuses food, and its vastness which paralyses transport.'
These were the problems to be overcome by the general who would conquer the Soudan and plant his flag on the walls of Khartoum.
Science and engineering skill came to the rescue, and with these under the guidance of a marvellous military genius that took in every situation, and turned it to his advantage, the enterprise was ultimately crowned with success. Hitherto military movements in the Soudan had been either by camels and weary foot trudging, or by boats on the Nile. Kitchener determined upon Wolseley's idea of crossing the desert between Wady Halfa and Abu-Hammed, but not by camels. He resolved to do it by rail, and to build the railway as they marched. It was a bold stroke. This is how it was done. Starting from Wady Halfa, a surveying party set out for ten miles or so, making a rough survey of the lie of the ground, marking as they went the proposed course; about five miles behind the surveying parties came working parties 1200 strong, levelling and embanking where necessary. Two miles behind these came 550 platelayers, and half a mile after them a gang of 400 men to lift, straighten, and ballast the line. One mile behind these again came 400 men to put on the finishing touches, and the line was complete, but ever progressing to its ultimate terminus, carrying forward its own materials of rails and sleepers, as well as supplies for troops on the march. The credit of this great work was largely due to the young lieutenants of the Royal Engineers under the direction of Lieutenant Girouard, a Canadian officer.