Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892

by Josef Ohrwalder; Sir F. R. Wingate

Here the writer suddenly breaks off; possibly a bullet had penetrated his weary heart.

The ring of encircling Dervishes was gradually drawing in and enclosing the ill-fated troops. The greatest destruction was done by Abu Anga's men who may be said to have destroyed the army; hidden behind shrubs and bushes, they fired incessantly at very close range into the midst of the Egyptians. One of Abu Anga's men told me that he alone had fired one hundred and fifty rounds. On that terrible Sunday General Hicks had to abandon a number of guns, for he had no mules to carry them. Dire confusion prevailed everywhere, the troops were suffering terribly from thirst, discipline was gone, and the men could not even lay their guns properly.

Klootz, whom the Khalifa Abdullah took with him, told me that he was some way from the place where the actual fighting was going on, and that the shells were striking the branches overhead. It would seem that the army made three attempts to break through the Dervish lines, but failed, and Klootz told me that the bodies were scattered in three large heaps extending over a distance of nearly two miles. The largest heap was in the forest of Shekan near Kashgeil, and it was here that the Dervishes fell on the remainder of the force and the European officers, and killed them with their lances on the 5th of November.

According to the evidence of the Dervishes themselves, the European officers fought most heroically. General Hicks was one of the last to fall; he had emptied his revolver, and, holding his sword in his right hand, waited for the rush of the enemy; he was soon surrounded and his horse wounded in the back; he then dismounted and fought most gallantly with his sword until he fell, pierced by several spears. The heroism of these brave men was the admiration of all. After the massacre the bodies were stripped and mutilated. Even long after the battle those who were present used to talk of the terrible spectacle of all these bodies lying with their mouths gaping open and covered with blood. These savages used to plunge their spears into the bodies of the dead so as to dip them in the bloody entrails of their enemies, and for long after they talked and revelled over the yellow-looking fat of the "Turks," which protruded through their gaping wounds. Baron Seckendorf, who was remarkable for his enormous size, had been beheaded, and his head was taken to the Mahdi; it was thought that he must have been General Hicks. A few escaped by hiding themselves under the heaps of dead bodies or behind guns or waggons; at the end of the action these were all collected, and numbered one hundred persons. During the actual fighting no quarter was given. An Egyptian soldier pursued by some Dervishes fled towards the Khalifa Sherif and begged to be spared; but the latter laughed at his fear, and he was at once despatched with spears.

The Dervishes then collected their dead and laid them out in a line. It seems almost incredible to say so, but there were only three hundred and fifty in all killed. The Mahdi offered up a prayer over them, and then they were buried.

The dead bodies of the Egyptians were left a prey to the vultures and hyenas. Klootz, who said that he understood doctoring, was permitted by the Mahdi to collect all the medicines in the field, and when doing so he was enabled to examine the bodies of the Europeans. He told me that it was with the greatest difficulty he kept himself from breaking down when he saw the mutilated corpses of those with whom he had but a short time ago laughed and spoken. The body of a soldier was seen hanging between earth and sky; he had evidently climbed up an Adansonia tree in search of water, when a bullet must have killed him, and in falling he was caught by the branches.

Amongst those who escaped was a man named Abderrahman Ben en Naga Bey, whose father, then in El Obeid, had entreated the Mahdi to spare him. A few days before the catastrophe he was found writing letters to Omar Wad Elias Pasha, then with Abdel Halim's force; in consequence he and his men had been put in irons, and it was Ala ed Din Pasha's intention to execute him; but Hicks would not allow it, saying that he would be fairly tried after El Obeid was captured. Ben en Naga was in the thickest of the fight, and had already lost an eye, when his father's slaves succeeded in reaching him and saving his life.

A BAGGARA EMIR, PRESENT AT THE ANNIHILATION OF THE HICKS EXPEDITION, AND AFTERWARDS CAPTURED AT TOSKI.