Many of the townspeople had started, the previous evening, for the field of battle; to bury the bodies of their friends who had fallen, and to bring in the wounded. Of the latter, after our own men had been attended to, fully nine thousand received aid and attention from the British doctors.
On the morning after the occupation, the work of purification began. Great numbers of the unwounded prisoners, and of the townspeople, were set to work to clean the streets; and, in a couple of days, the wider thoroughfares and avenues had been thoroughly cleansed.
Having but little to do, Gregory went into the Khalifa's arsenal. This building was full of war material of all kinds; including a perfectly appointed battery of Krupp guns, numbers of old cannon, modern machine-guns, rifles and pistols; mixed up with musical instruments, suits of chain armour, steel helmets, hundreds of battle flags, and thousands of native spears, swords, and shields. Besides these the collection comprised ivory, percussion caps, lead, copper, and bronze, looms, pianos, sewing machines, boilers, steam engines, agricultural implements, ostrich feathers, wooden and iron bedsteads, paints, India rubber, leather water bottles, clothes, three state coaches, and an American buggy. There were also a modern smithy, where gunpowder, shell, bullets, and cartridge cases were made and stored; and a well-appointed engineers' shop and foundry, with several steam engines, turning lathes, and other tools. The machinery had been brought from Gordon's arsenal at Khartoum, where the foreman had been employed; and the workmen were, for the most part, Greeks.
The battle was fought on Friday, the 2nd of September. On Sunday a flotilla of boats, containing detachments from all the British and Egyptian regiments, and every officer who could be spared from duty, proceeded up the river to Khartoum. The ruined and deserted city looked delightful, after the sand, dirt, and wretchedness of Omdurman. The gardens of the governor's house, and other principal buildings, had run wild; and the green foliage was restful indeed, to the eye, after the waste of sand, rock, and scrub that had been traversed by the army on its way from Wady Halfa.
The vessels drew up opposite a grove of tall palms. Beyond them appeared what had been the government house. The upper story was gone, the windows were filled up with bricks, and a large acacia stood in front of the building.
The troops formed up before the palace, in three sides of a square--the Egyptians were to the left, looking from the river, and the British to the right--the Sirdar, and the generals of the divisions and brigades, facing the centre. Two flagstaffs had been raised on the upper story. The Sirdar gave the signal, and the British and Egyptian flags were run up. As they flew out, one of the gunboats fired a salute, the Guards' band struck up "God Save the Queen!" and the band of the 11th Soudanese then played the Khedive's hymn, while the Generals and all present stood in salute, with their hands to the peak of their helmets. The Sirdar's call for three cheers for the Queen was enthusiastically responded to, every helmet being raised. Similar cheers were then given for the Khedive, the bands again struck up, and twenty-one guns were fired.
As the last gun echoed out, the Guards played the Dead March, in Saul; and the black band the march called Toll for the Brave, the latter in memory of the Khedive's subjects, who had died with Gordon. Then minute guns were fired, and four chaplains--Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Catholic--by turns read a psalm or a prayer. The pipers then wailed a dirge, and finally the Soudanese bands played Gordon's favourite hymn, Abide with Me.
At the conclusion, General Hunter and the other officers shook hands with the Sirdar, one by one. Kitchener himself was deeply moved, and well he might be! Fourteen years of his life had been spent in preparing for, and carrying out, this campaign; and now the great task was done. Gordon was avenged. Of the Dervish host, the remnant were scattered fugitives. The Mahdi's cause, the foulest and most bloodstained tyranny that had ever existed, transforming as it did a flourishing province into an almost uninhabited desert, was crushed forever; and it was his patient and unsparing labour, his wonderful organization, that had been the main factor in the work. No wonder that even the Iron Sirdar almost broke down, at such a moment.
The bugles sounded, and the troops broke up their formation; and, for half an hour, wandered through the empty chambers of the palace, and the wild and beautiful garden. Another bugle call, and they streamed down to the water's edge, took to the boats, and returned to Omdurman.
The long-delayed duty, which England owed to one of her noblest sons, had been done. Gordon had had his burial. None knew where his bones reposed, but that mattered little. In the place where he was slain, all honour had been done to him; and the British flag waved over the spot where he disappeared, forever, from the sight of his countrymen.