It was intended that the Monassir tribe, the murderers of Donald Stewart and his party, should, if possible, be surrounded and cut off; but they were found to be entrenched and prepared for a desperate resistance on lofty ground near the Shukuk Pass on a ridge of razor-backed hills, commanding a gorge which lies between the latter and the Nile, and the entrance to which they had closed by a fort and walls loopholed for musketry.
'The Black Watch and Staffordshire will advance in skirmishing order!' was the command of General Earle.
Six companies of the Highlanders and four of the latter corps now extended on both flanks at a run. The Hussars galloped to the right, while two companies of the Staffordshire, with two guns, were left to protect the boats in the river, the hospital corps, the stores, and spare ammunition.
This order was maintained till the companies of skirmishers gradually, and firing with admirable coolness and precision, worked their way towards the high rocks in their front. While closing in with the enemy, whose furious fusillade enveloped the dark ridge in white smoke, streaked by incessant flashes of red fire, men were falling down on every hand with cries to God for help or mercy, and some, it might be, with a fierce and bitter malediction.
There was no time to think, for the next bullet might floor the thinker: it was the supreme moment which tries the heart of the bravest; but every officer and man felt that he must do his duty at all hazards. Bullets sang past, thudded in silvery stars on the rocks, cut the clothing, or raised clouds of dust; comrades and dear friends were going down fast, as rifles were tossed up and hands were lifted heavenward—as, more often, men fell in death, in blood and agony; but good fortune seemed to protect the untouched, and then came the clamorous and tiger-like longing to close in, to grapple with, to get within grasp of the foe!
In this spirit Roland went on, but keeping his skirmishers well in hand, till they reached the high rocks in front, when they rushed between or over them; and there Colonel Eyre, a noble, veteran officer, and remarkably handsome man, who, though a gentleman by birth, had risen from the ranks in the Crimea—then as now conspicuous for his bravery—fell at the head of his beloved South Staffordshire while attacking the second ridge, 'where, behind some giant boulders, the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil was with his Robatat tribe—the most determined of the Arab race.'
The good Colonel was pausing for a moment beside two of his wounded men. 'Colonel Eyre took one of them by the hand,' wrote an officer whom we are tempted to quote, 'to comfort him a little. A minute after he turned to me and said: "I am a dead man!" I saw a mark below his shoulder, and said: "No, you are not." He looked at me for a second, and said: "Lord, have mercy upon me—God help my poor wife!" ... He was dead in a minute after he was hit, and did not appear to suffer, the shock being so great. The bullet entered the right breast, and came out under the left shoulder.'
Like a roaring wave the infuriated Staffordshire went on, and then the Robatat tribe were assailed by two companies of the Highlanders, led by their Colonel and General Earle in person. 'The Black Watch advanced over rocks and broken ground upon the Koppies,' says Lord Wolseley's very brief despatch, 'and, after having by their fire in the coolest manner driven off a rush of the enemy, stormed the position under a heavy fire.'
But desperate was the struggle prior to this. The Arabs, from the cover of every rock and boulder, poured in a fire with the most murderous precision, while our soldiers flung themselves headlong at any passage or opening they found, no matter how narrow or steep.
Like wild tigers in their lair, the Arabs fought at bay, having everywhere the advantage of the ground, and inspired by a fury born of fanaticism and religious rancour, resolute to conquer or die; but in spite of odds and everything, our soldiers stormed rock after rock, and fastness after fastness, working their way on by bayonet and bullet, the Black Watch on the left, the old 38th on the right, upward and onward, over rocks slippery with dripping blood, over the groaning, the shrieking, the dying, and the dead.