"We then advanced a bit, till we could see the Dem (zariba), pulled up, and commenced firing with our artillery, in hopes of drawing Mahmoud out to fight, and secondly of pounding his army well before we assaulted the position. Our cavalry was on my left, watching the left flank; the Dervishes made several attempts to get their cavalry out, but failed. Well, after hammering away for an hour, the order for assault was given, and away we went, the, Camerons covering the front of the assaulting column, and firing as they went; directly we got on to the crest of the hill men began to tumble about, and I gave the order to rush the zariba and stockade.
The return march
"We lost some very good officers and men killed, but that must always be; we lost fewer than I expected. Captain Findlay, Camerons, a nice fellow, was killed getting over the zariba. Captain Urquhart, of the Camerons, too, was killed. He had just come back from the Staff College on purpose to take part in the expedition. Gore was quite a boy. I was with Captain Findlay most of the march to the zariba, as his was the company of direction, and as we were marching principally by the stars, I had to be there or thereabouts. After they were dead I cut off a bit of hair from Findlay and Urquhart to send home; Gore had had his hair cut so short that none was procurable. We buried them all in one grave, immediately after the fight. A curious sight: the Pipers and Buglers of a Soudanese battalion played the Dead March in Saul, then the Pipers of the Camerons and Seaforths played a Lament, then we filled in the grave. We had amongst the four Brigades about 600 killed and wounded, and we had, immediately we had buried the dead and dressed the wounded, to carry all these men back about eight miles across the desert. We told off eight men to each stretcher, and moved slowly homewards, leaving at 6 p.m. The fight was over about 8.45 a.m. I think, but it took us all day to dress the wounded and build sheds for them (of bushes). The sun, of course, is very hot, and we had all to sit in the desert, as the bush and the river-bank was so full of dead and dying Dervishes as to make it inadvisable for our men to lie there.
*****
"Now I suppose we shall be here for three months, to refit and prepare for the next go-in at Khartoum, which will require careful doing."
The Sirdar was naturally very much gratified at the decisive nature of his victory, and was overwhelmed with telegrams of congratulation. The following quotation from an article in Blackwood's Magazine of December 1902 tells us how the Sirdar expressed himself to his colleague:
"Kitchener was dictating his dispatch to the Queen when there passed in front of us a pony led by a syce, and laden with spoils selected from that field of plenty with the praiseworthy discrimination of an art connoisseur. Kitchener hailed the man, and selecting the finest coat of mail and the most beautifully finished spear, bade me take them to General Gatacre with his warmest thanks for the splendid gallantry and good judgment with which he had led his fine Brigade. I seem now to see the pleasant light that shone in that brave soldier's eyes as I gave him the message word for word. What a splendid fellow, and how willingly any of us would have given our right hands to save him from the fate that befell him—at the hands of his own chiefs—in South Africa."[[3]]
[[3]] Ex article, "Campaigning with Kitchener," December 1902, p. 738.