As the party left the hills at night for the open plateau, Ibrahim slipped off his pony, permitted his wife to pass, but as his sister rode up, silently pressed her big toe. The lady dismounted from her pony, allowing the cavalcade to move on.
Ibrahim, and his sister, reported to Colonel Summers that the Mullah had gone.
The lady informed me that the Mullah had changed his mind about the Maxim guns and had sent instructions that they were to be hidden in a cave at Helas, where they were later discovered by Somali scouts and handed to the O.C. King's African Rifles. It was discovered that one of these was the identical gun captured from the regiment when Colonel Plunkett met with disaster in 1906. Thus did Time bring revenge, and I was proud that my old regiment, fourteen years later, was there to receive back one of the very few guns it had lost in action.
On the 3rd February, Captain Cross returned from Medishe, bringing in as loot five hundred and twenty-two rifles and much native equipment and stores. As I had flown from El-dur-Elan to Al Afwenia I had been obliged to leave my camp equipment behind, and was overjoyed to find, amongst the latter, several pots, two good frying-pans and a tea kettle. There was also, amongst other things, a sextant marked with an R.N. officer's name; part of the diary of the German, Emil Kirsch, who, in 1916, was sent by Lij Yassu, the fugitive ex-king of Abyssinia, to repair the Mullah's machine guns and rifles. Swords, revolvers, double-barrelled pistols, one of which bore the name of a well-known gunmaker in the Strand; every make of rifle known in Europe was there for the curio-hunter to annex. Cross reported that Medishe had been evacuated hurriedly, and there was no doubt that the dervishes were thoroughly demoralised. He was much impressed by the strength of the place, the excellent buildings and the general sanitary arrangements. A dam had been built across the stream, and an excellent garden had been laid out. There was no doubt about it, he stated, that the Mullah was a thoroughly capable man.
Before leaving Medishe the Grenadiers razed the forts to the ground with gun cotton. The fort at Jidali, however, was less easy to dispose of, and successfully resisted several attempts to blow it up. The stone walls were nine feet thick, solidly built, and it would have required heavy artillery to have made much impression upon it. The roof, the weakest part of the structure, successfully withstood the Stokes bombs aimed at it by the Camel Corps. Jidali Fort is similar to all other forts built by the Mullah. Inside it is a perfect rabbit warren among which it would have been highly dangerous to the throwers themselves had hand-grenades been used.
In one of the forts at Medishe Cross found a particularly gruesome sight, and typical of the methods of the Mad Mullah. At the end of a rope, suspended from the roof over a slow fire, hung by the waist, were the remains of a dervish who had thus been done to death for some petty crime or neglect of duty.
Shortly after Cross's return Ibrahim's wife arrived. On learning of her husband's defection the dervishes had stripped and beaten her, but sighting the planes, had abandoned her to die. She was followed by a stream of dervish women and children who stated that the men refused to give them food, and had ordered them to shift for themselves. Amongst them were many slave women dragging at their ankles heavy chains with weights attached. They were soon set free, and though our commissariat arrangements were strained to breaking point we did the best we could for them, and all the women were cared for.
Meanwhile on the 2nd of February the King's African Rifles arrived at Jidali from Baran. This latter fort had put up a stiff fight. Finding that the loopholes of the fort restricted the line of fire to the front, and did not allow for angle fire, the officer commanding had advanced on each side at an angle, suffering no serious casualties. For two days the beleaguered garrison held out under a heavy fire from Stokes guns, which dropped their bombs on the roof, though making no impression whatever. All loopholes, and the parapets, were commanded by the K.A.R. machine guns. Finding that the firing from the fort had weakened a party was pushed up to the door, against which a case of gun cotton was exploded, without effect. At last, apparently only one of the defenders was left alive, and the besiegers, who had drawn in, demanded his surrender, assuring him his life was safe.
"I shall surrender," he answered.