The voyage up the river was an uneventful one. It seemed all too short to Gregory, who enjoyed immensely the rest, quiet, and comparative coolness. The Sirdar had gone up a week before they landed at Wady Hamed. Here the whole Egyptian portion of the army, with the exception of the brigade that was to arrive the next day, was assembled. The blacks had constructed straw huts; the Egyptians erected shelters, extemporized from their blankets; while the British were to be installed in tents, which had been brought up in sailing boats. The camp was two miles in length and half a mile wide, surrounded by a strong zareba.
The Egyptian cavalry and the camel corps had arrived. On the opposite side of the river was a strong body of friendly Arabs, nominally under the Abadar sheik, but in reality commanded by Major Montague Stuart-Wortley. By the 23rd of August the whole force had arrived; and the Sirdar reviewed them, drawn up in battle array, and put them through a few manoeuvres, as if in action. General Gatacre commanded the British division--Colonel Wauchope the first brigade, and Lyttleton the second. As before, Macdonald, Maxwell, and Lewis commanded the first three Egyptian brigades, and Collinson that newly raised, General Hunter being in command of the division.
The force numbered, in all, about twenty thousand; and although destitute of the glitter and colour of a British army, under ordinary circumstances, were as fine a body of men as a British general could wish to command; and all, alike, eager to meet the foe. The British division had with them two batteries and ten Maxims, and the Egyptian division five batteries and ten Maxims.
As Gregory was strolling through the camp, he passed where the officers of one of the British regiments were seated on boxes, round a rough table, over which a sort of awning had been erected.
"Come and join us, Hilliard. We are having our last feast on our last stores, which we got smuggled up in one of the gunboats," the Major called out.
"With pleasure, sir."
The officer who was sitting at the head of the table made room beside him.
"You men of the Egyptian Army fare a good deal better than we do, I think," the Major went on. "That institution of private camels is an excellent one. We did not know that they would be allowed. But, after all, it is not a bad thing that we did not have them, for there is no doubt it is as well that the soldiers should not see us faring better than they. There is bother enough with the baggage, as it is. Of course, it is different in your case. There are only two or three white officers with each battalion, and it would not strike your black troops as a hardship that you should have different food from themselves. They are living as well as, or better than, they ever did in their lives. Three camels make no material addition to your baggage train, while, as there are thirty or forty of us, it would make a serious item in ours, and the General's keen eyes would spot them at once."
"Our camels are no burden to the army," Gregory said. "They only have a few pounds of grain a day, and get their living principally on what they can pick up. When they go on now, they will each carry fifty pounds of private grain. They get five pounds when there are no bushes or grass, so that the grain will last them for a fortnight."
"I suppose you think that the Dervishes mean fighting?"