'The fight was fought and won in the good old British fashion, with the cold steel; the breech-loader has not yet rendered the bayonet obsolete.
'The Guards and Highlanders made themselves at home among the tents and spoils of the Egyptians; but our soldiers, flushed with glory and fresh from conquest, no more spoke of the Gordons, the Ross-shire Buffs, or the Black Watch, but of Donald Cameron of the Camerons—the young hero from the Braes of Angus, who was the first in Tel-el-Kebir!
'Who could say what heroic blood was in his veins, for his name was old as the hills, when the Camerons were known as the children of the Follower of Ovi.
'I had some narrow escapes. A ball carried away the pommel of my dirk. I had a bayonet thrust through my kilt, and two shells exploded near me, covering me with sand; but I had a closer shave than that. In the rush as I led on my company, two powerful Egyptians in white uniforms, with scarlet tarbooshes, seemed to devote their energies to killing me, as an officer or prominent leader. Both attacked me with their fixed bayonets. By a circular parry of my claymore, I turned one of them aside, and ran the man through—or near—the heart. He screamed and grappled me by the throat, dragged me down amid the blood-soaked sand. So savage and powerful was his death-grip that had he failed to strangle me, I must have perished under the bayonet of the other, whom Cameron cut down, through tarboosh and bone to the chin, and then released me. A third who came up he pistolled, and I hope Evan will get a clasp to his V.C. for this.
'The papers will, of course, tell you all the rest—how we captured the standing camp and immense stores of provisions and plunder; how the victorious troops advanced with tremendous cheers across it to the railway station, where soon after Sir Garnet came up; and how Drury Lowe with his cavalry cut across the enemy's line of flight, killing and capturing on every hand.
'I know how my father, with his great love of the old Black Watch, will appreciate the story of our glory at Tel-el-Kebir; but the aspect of the place was awful after the firing ceased and the sun came up in his morning splendour—a sight never to forget, though I have seen some terrible work in India.
'The dead lay about in scores and hundreds, many disembowelled by shot or shell; some with brains oozing out; others with their heads literally blown off; and some were scorched to death by their clothing becoming ignited by the flame of an exploded shell. There were wounds of every kind—by the bayonet, the rifle-butt, and sword; and many of the maimed were seen to cast aside their tarboosh and bury their head in the sand for coolness, while the cries for water were simply agonising.
'I found the third Egyptian from whom Cameron's pistol had saved me. He was dying. "Turn my head towards Mecca," I heard him say faintly to a comrade who lay near him. The fellah did so, and the poor wretch passed away in peace. I saw some who died making signs of the cross, but these, of course, were Coptic Christians.
'Two ill omens, it is said, occurred before the conflict to chill the ardour of the Egyptians. In the fight of Kassassin a man was shot through the heart by a rifle ball, which pierced a copy of the Koran that he carried there as a charm, and took a part of it into his body. The other was the crescent of the new moon, which encircled a star and sank with it below the horizon just before the attack, and this, being emblematic of the crescent and star, was deemed ominous of defeat and destruction.
'Arabi has fled towards Belbeis, pursued by Drury Lowe.