At Gakdul the Royal Irish had a comparatively pleasant rest. A quantity of stores had recently arrived from Korti, and as there was no means of carrying them back, the Commissariat distributed them among the troops, who were regaled on jam, cheese, fresh bread, fresh meat, vegetables, and other long-forgotten delicacies. The men had time to change their clothes, there was enough water for washing, and better than all, a great budget of letters from home awaited the regiment. Some of the units of the column started at once for Korti, but it was not until the 2nd of March that the battalion was warned to start next day, an order which was very welcome, for the wells had begun to give out, and “the water had become filled with living animals, smelt, and was as fit to drink as a dirty duck pool!” From the 5th to the 8th the Royal Irish halted at the wells of Megara, where a successful foray of desert robbers upon the slaughter cattle considerably reduced their rations of meat. Then they once more pushed northward, this time in detachments, the last of which reached Korti on the 14th. As Lord Wolseley rode out to welcome them he saw men whom a civilian would have derided as tramps and scarecrows, but in whom a soldier’s eye recognised troops of the finest quality. Their uniforms hung in rags, patched where patching was possible with any material that had come to hand. Their boots were a nightmare. Their skins were the colour of mahogany, their faces seamed with the lines which hunger and thirst, exposure to heat and cold, want of sleep, and prolonged exertion stamp upon every soldier in a campaign. Their stern eyes, their hard-set mouths, their steady march and proud carriage all showed that their spirit and discipline were as high as ever, and that the great fatigues of their marches in the desert had in no way impaired the efficiency of the Royal Irish. On the 16th Lord Wolseley inspected the battalion, warmly thanked all ranks for the work they had done, and informed them that General Buller had reported on them in the most favourable terms.
Among those who had done much towards keeping the morale of the XVIIIth at the high standard maintained throughout the Nile campaign was the Roman Catholic chaplain, the Reverend Father Brindle, D.S.O., now Bishop of Nottingham, whose name even now is one to conjure with in the Royal Irish regiment. After serving with the second battalion in the war of 1882, he accompanied the first battalion throughout the whole of the expedition up the Nile. His genial personality, his devotion to duty, his coolness in danger, his indifference to hardship, combined to give him a remarkable influence over the men, which he exerted invariably in the highest interests of the Service.
The Royal Irish thoroughly enjoyed the comparative civilisation of the headquarters camp. They were once more under canvas; they had an inexhaustible supply of water; and they feasted their eyes, weary from the glare of the Bayuda desert, upon the palms and acacias growing on the narrow strip of cultivation which fringes both banks of the Nile. But they were not allowed to rest there long. When the rear-guard of the desert column returned to Korti, the British government were still determined to avenge Gordon and to crush the Mahdi’s power at Khartoum; and Lord Wolseley arranged to concentrate the expeditionary force for the summer in cantonments along the Nile near Korti. The XVIIIth was assigned to a movable column, commanded by Brigadier-General Brackenbury, whose headquarters were at Debbeh, with detachments in the neighbouring villages, one of which, Kurot, was occupied by the Royal Irish, where they settled down, as they thought for many months. Some of their huts were made of logs, grass mats, and similar materials, bought from the natives and issued to the troops; others were built of bricks, made out of the soil on the banks of the river and dried in the sun. “The battalion,” writes an officer who was present, “excelled at making the moulds for these bricks, and a sergeant, Kelly, was the crack moulder.” The want of straw, however, proved as serious a hindrance to the brick-making of Wolseley’s troops as to the Israelites of old, for many thousand bricks cracked and were wasted. But only a fortnight after the last unit had reached its allotted post, Wolseley was warned by the Cabinet that owing to the possibility of England being embroiled in war elsewhere, the expedition to Khartoum might be abandoned, and on the 11th of May he received orders to withdraw from the Soudan. He obeyed; but as the General-in-Chief in Egypt, who had been studying the local situation for many months, he strongly protested against the new policy, pointing out that if we retreated the Mahdi’s power would greatly increase, and that the British government would not only have to reinforce the garrison of Egypt, but to fight for the protection of that country. The difficulty of carrying out the evacuation was greatly increased by the necessity of bringing back about thirteen thousand natives, who, having thrown in their lot with us, could not be abandoned to the tender mercies of the Mahdists; but by dint of careful organisation and hard work the task was accomplished. General Brackenbury’s command started on the 1st of June in whale-boats for Abu Fatmeh, where three hundred men of the XVIIIth, under Lieutenant-Colonel Wray, were landed, and after marching some distance down the Nile rejoined the remainder of the battalion. Though the difficulties were light compared to those of the upward voyage, they were by no means insignificant, for the voyageurs had gone back to Canada, and the Royal Irish, who acted as rear and baggage guard to the column, had much work in towing and mending whale-boats, wrecked or damaged in shooting the rapids. When the battalion reached Alexandria, it was joined by a strong draft: a hundred and seventy-nine non-commissioned officers and men from the second battalion at Malta had landed in January, of whom fifty-eight had been fortunate enough to be sent to Suakim, where they served as mounted infantry in the eastern Soudan. Thus by a curious chance the Royal Irish were represented in the campaign of 1884-85 not only on the Nile, but also on the shores of the Red Sea, where a young officer of the regiment, Lieutenant D. G. Gregorie, who had already greatly distinguished himself while serving in the Egyptian army, was awarded the fourth class of the order of the Osmanieh.
MAP No. 8. MAP No. 9.
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As a matter of historical interest it may be mentioned that Lord Wolseley’s predictions proved singularly correct. Within six months of our withdrawal from Dongola a large body of the enemy attempted the invasion of Egypt, besieged for forty days a fort held by British troops, and did not retire southwards until on December 30, 1885, they had been defeated at the battle of Ginniss. To meet this incursion it was found necessary to hurry nearly seven thousand British troops up the Nile, and to increase the garrison of Lower Egypt by about three thousand men.
In despatches Lord Wolseley mentioned the following officers of the Royal Irish: Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw, V.C.; Captain Guinness, and Lieutenant B. J. C. Doran. Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw was awarded the C.B.; Captain Guinness was promoted to a Brevet-Majority, and Lieutenant B. J. C. Doran was noted for a Brevet-Majority on his attaining the rank of Captain. The Egyptian medal and clasp for the Nile, 1884-85, and the Khedive’s Star were issued to all ranks. In 1886, the regiment was permitted to add to its battle honours the words, “Nile 1884-5,” in commemoration of the ascent of the River and the operations in the Bayuda desert.
The first battalion, Royal Irish regiment embarked at Alexandria on August 24, 1885, in the s.s. Stirling Castle, and arrived at Plymouth on September 9.