With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman

by G. A. Henty

"Tomorrow they will probably enlist in our service, to a man, and will fight just as sturdily as the other Soudanese battalions, against their brethren in Khartoum. All the prisoners we have hitherto taken who are fit for the work have done so; and, as has been shown today, are just as ready to fight on our side as they were against us. They are a fighting people, and it is curious how they become attached to their white officers, whom formerly they hated as infidels."

When the matter was explained to them, the women accepted the situation with the resignation that is natural to the Mahometan woman. Gregory was able to assure Fatma that, in a short time, she would undoubtedly be allowed to join Mahmud, and accompany him wherever he was sent.

"But will they not kill him?" she said.

"We never kill prisoners. Even the bitterest enemy that may fall into our hands is well treated. Mahmud will doubtless be sent down to Cairo, and it will then be settled where he is to be taken to; but you may be sure that, wherever it may be, he will be well treated and cared for."

"In that case, I shall be happy," she said. "When you saved me, I saw that the ways of you Christians were better than our ways. Now I see it still more. To be always raiding, and plundering, and killing cannot be good. It used to seem to me natural and right, but I have come to think differently."

At four o'clock the troops marched. At Gregory's request, he was allowed to remain behind and accompany the Egyptians. He had bought for a few shillings, from the soldiers, a dozen donkeys that had been found alive in some of the pits. These he handed over to Fatma, for her conveyance and that of the wives of some of the emirs, who were of the party.

The Egyptians started at half-past eight, carrying their own wounded and those of the British. By the route by which the army had marched, the night before, the distance was but nine miles; but there had been some rough places to pass, and to avoid these, where the wounded might have suffered from jolting, they made a circuit, thereby adding three miles to the length of the march; and did not reach Umdabieh camp until two o'clock in the morning. General Hunter, who never spared himself, rode with them and acted as guide.

During the fight he, Colonel Macdonald, and Colonel Maxwell had ridden at the head of their brigades, the white regimental officers being on foot with the men, as was their custom; and it was surprising that the three conspicuous figures had all come through the storm of fire unscathed.

The next morning was a quiet one, and in the afternoon all marched off to the old camp, at Abadar. On Sunday they rested, and on Monday the British brigade marched to Hudi, and then across the desert to Hermali, where they were to spend the summer. The Sirdar rode, with the Egyptian brigades, to Fort Atbara. Macdonald's brigade was to go on to garrison Berber, Maxwell's to Assillem, and that of Lewis to remain at Atbara.

The question of the prisoners was already half solved. Almost all of them willingly embraced the offer to enlist in the Egyptian army. Many of the women found their husbands among the prisoners. Others agreed, at once, to marry men of the Soudanese battalion. The rest, pending such offers as they might receive in the future, decided to remain at Atbara. At Berber their lot would have been a hard one, for they would have been exposed to the hatred and spite of the Jaalin women there, whose husbands had been massacred at Metemmeh.