The force with which the Sirdar could meet the enemy was composed of the British Brigade, which had now been completed to four battalions by the arrival of the Seaforth Highlanders, and three Brigades of the Egyptian Army, commanded respectively by Colonel Maxwell, Colonel Macdonald, and Colonel Lewis. There were also eight squadrons of cavalry, and two Maxim guns under Colonel Broadwood, six companies of the Camel Corps under Major Tudway, and some artillery, both heavy and light, under Colonel Long. The total ran up to nearly 14,000 men of all arms. This force was concentrated at Kenur on the Nile, and all the officers seem genuinely to have held the opinion that contact with the enemy might occur at any moment. But as it turned out, it was not till seventeen days after the Sirdar's force started on their march to meet the enemy that the two armies met.

On Sunday, March 20, the whole force marched across the angle of the desert to Da Hudi, a camp on the Atbara River about twelve miles south-east of Kenur. They started as if only for a reconnaissance in force, for we read: "We are taking only one day's supplies and what we stand up in, one blanket being carried for us on camels." The hospital staff and transport was cut down to such narrow dimensions that it was hardly adequate for the work when the big fight really took place. Through all the next seventeen days the force lived on tinned beef and biscuits, in daily anticipation of closing with the enemy. But what was privation, discomfort, and hardship to every man in the force was vexation of spirit also to Gatacre. Writing on March 30, he says:

"We may move to-morrow against Mahmoud, who is still in his entrenched jungle position at Hilgi on the east bank of the Atbara, eighteen miles south of this. I have been urging the Sirdar to move forward and attack him, as we have been inactive for some days, while Mahmoud is merely sitting and waiting for us. The inaction has a bad effect, both on our men and on the enemy."

And again on April 3:

"We are leaving the camp to-morrow, and going on to one three and a half to four miles south of Abadar. I was in great hopes that the Sirdar would attack Mahmoud at once. I thought I had persuaded him, but he wired my recommendation to Lord Cromer, and gave his own opinion and that of General Hunter, which were for waiting. To-day he got a wire from Lord Cromer, deciding not to attack—a great pity, I think. At present the situation is as under: Mahmoud is in a zariba about ten miles from here, with about 20,000 men, very much crushed up for space, exceedingly hard up for food, and so placed that they cannot, in the event of a reverse, get away at all as an organised force. There never was such a chance, and we are missing it."

Continuing his letter on the following day, he says:

"Yesterday, after writing so far, I got a bad go of colic, or malaria, or something, which made me feel very bad; but I am better to-day, and hope to be all right to-morrow. I hear that another telegram has come from Lord Cromer, saying, on consideration he leaves the matter to the Sirdar, so I presume he will now attack as soon as possible. I hope so. We have moved to-day to Abadar, and are encamped in a shady belt of trees, near the river, but it is getting very hot."

A forward policy

During this time there had been frequent reconnaissances in the direction of the enemy's camp by the cavalry and Camel Corps and artillery. Three small actions had been fought; and with the help of the information thus obtained, and from the tales of deserters, the position, size, and strength of Mahmoud's camp were known with considerable accuracy.

It was the responsibility which Gatacre had incurred by advocating an early attack on this fortified position, against the advice of others better acquainted with Soudan warfare, that coloured all his dispositions when the day arrived. He did not, however, let his natural forwardness of character deceive him as to the resistance to be overcome. The author of The River War has already made this point, although he did not know the true interpretation of the situation.